occultdetective.com

I grew up on the edge of my grandparent’s farm in rural Indiana, roaming the sparse woods and wading in the shallow waters of the creek that wound its way through our back yard. At night I’d slip out to prowl the local boneyard and explore the isolated wonders that surrounded me. It was the 70s and in the Midwest it may as well have been twenty years earlier. It was a simpler place and time.

We didn’t have much in the way of television back then, catching four, sometimes five channels with our towering tv antenna. Channel 40 was one of them, and it played reruns of everything from the Lone Ranger to the Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers, the Beverly Hillbillies, and a host of other shows long past. My favorite was the Mickey Mouse Club, but only because of the Hardy Boys serials.

The Hardy Boys captured my imagination and opened up to me the world of books. The public library in nearby Converse had a few dozen of the original tales, and every Christmas and birthday my family would buy me the blue spined editions. Whether reading the revised texts or the unaltered texts didn’t matter. I was invested in the world of the Hardy Boys and after I’d plowed through every copy of the series I could get my hands on I tackled Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, and Alfred Hitchcok’s Three Investigators to fill the void.

And then, in 1977, ABC introduced the Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries and I was smitten all over again. What intrigued me the most was the addition of a supernatural element to the stories, especially in episodes like The House on Possessed Hill which guest starred a young Melanie Griffith. The Hardy Boys as occult detective was a perfect match and the current CW hit Supernatural is a natural extension of that formula.

Now that I’m growing long in the tooth, I find nostalgia rearing its ugly head and I’ve begun revisiting those things that helped to fill my childhood with magic. And that’s what the Hardy Boys were to me… magic. They helped to fire my youthful imagination and in a world before cable televison, dvd players, and computers, they were my constant companions and offered me thrilling worlds that I could escape into and relate to.

It’s hard to imagine what my life would have been like without the Hardy Boys. I’m glad I’ll never know. Now, as my son gets older, I get to share them with him and I can only hope that some of the Hardy Boys magic wears off on him as it did me.

My Hardy Boys Collection

01. The Tower Treasure (A)

02. The House on the Cliff (A)

03. The Secret of the Old Mill (A)

04. The Missing Chums

05. Hunting for Hidden Gold

06. The Shore Road Mystery

07. The Secret of the Caves

08. The Mystery of Cabin Island

09. The Great Airport Mystery

10. What Happened at Midnight

11. While the Clock Ticked

12. Footprints under the Window (A)

13. The Mark on the Door

14. The Hidden Harbor Mystery (A)

15. The Sinister Sign Post

16. A Figure in Hiding

17. The Secret Warning

18. The Twisted Claw

19. The Disappearing Floor

20. Mystery of the Flying Express

21. The Clue of the Broken Blade

22. The Flickering Torch Mystery

23. The Melted Coins

24. The Short-Wave Mystery

25. The Secret Panel

26. The Phantom Freighter

27. The Secret of Skull Mountain

28. The Sign of the Crooked Arrow

29. The Secret of the Lost Tunnel

30. The Wailing Siren Mystery

31. The Secret of Wildcat Swamp

32. The Crisscross Shadow

33. The Yellow Feather Mystery

34. The Hooded Hawk Mystery

35. The Clue in the Embers

36. The Secret of Pirates’ Hill

37. The Ghost at Skeleton Rock

38. Mystery at Devil’s Paw

39. The Mystery of the Chinese Junk

40. Mystery of the Desert Giant

41. The Clue of the Screeching Owl

42. The Viking Symbol Mystery

43. The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior

44. The Haunted Fort

45. The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge

46. The Secret Agent on Flight 101

47. Mystery of the Whale Tattoo

48. The Arctic Patrol Mystery

49. The Bombay Boomerang

50. Danger on Vampire Trail

51. The Masked Monkey

52. The Shattered Helmet

53. The Clue of the Hissing Serpent

54. The Mysterious Caravan

55. The Witchmaster’s Key

56. The Jungle Pyramid

57. The Firebird Rocket

58. The Sting of the Scorpion

59. Night of the Werewolf

The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook

bold # = a title in my collection, regardless of edition
bold = dust-jacketed originals
underlined = blue backed editions
(A) = Applewood Books reproduction

My Nancy Drew Collection

coming soon

My Three Investigators Collection

coming soon