The Mystery of the Mysteriously Missing Brother (The Hearty Bros # 1) - a Hardy Boys parody

I'm always up for a good parody, especially when it pokes fun of everyone's favorite teen detectives, Nancy Drew and/or the Hardy Boys!  In this latest find, Frank and Joe Hardy - oops!  I mean, Frank and Joe HEARTY (after all, in order to constitute a parody, the names have to be changed!) are all grown up, and Frank's two sons are now set to carry on the family tradition.  But these are the Hardys ... er, I mean the Heartys ... that you may remember from your youth!  Joe is troubled, Frank is a has-been detective trying to follow in his father's footsteps, Callie is now Frank's wife and nothing like that spirited young girl of her youth, and Frank and Callie's two sons - Fenton II and James - are nothing, and I mean NOTHING, like their father and uncle!  Well, they may have more in common with their uncle...

The Mystery of the Mysteriously Missing Brother opens with Frank Hearty starting a search for his brother, Joe, who has been incommunicado for way too long.  Frank is used to Joe dropping off the grid for a while - usually when he is hiding out from the police or people he has swindled or dealers to whom he owes money - but this time, his silence has lasted way too long.  Frank is beginning to worry.  Sheriff Colic is none to eager to help, because with Joe gone, that's less crime he has to deal with.  His wife is too large and too lazy to be concerned with her brother-in-law's whereabouts.  And his sons?  Well, they are either too high or too wrapped up in their own lives to be bothered.  So it falls upon Frank to begin the search for his mysteriously missing brother, even if that means going undercover in the absolute worst part of Bayporch to find him!

But don't count Fenton II and James out of the picture.  They may seem unconcerned, but in reality, they are just as determined to find Scoops (their affectionate name for their Uncle Joe).  But they have their own ways of searching for clues - so after smoking a few bowls, Fenton II manages to remember a few details from the last time he hung out with his uncle, and so beings the Hearty Bros. search for their mysteriously missing uncle.

The book definitely takes the Hardys ... er, the Heartys ... down a dark and twisted path.  The criminal element of Bayporch is considerably worse than that of Bayport, and the amount of drugs and other crimes going on in Frank's own family is something the Stratemeyer Syndicate would have never ever allowed in their series!  But there are some humorous elements to the story and the characters, and the obliviousness of Frank to the things his family is involved with (Fenton II's "herbal" garden, Callie's special brownies, etc.) gives him a slight air of innocence in a dark underworld type of tale.  There are pointed references to the actual books, with the house on the cliff, Shore Road, the secret of the caves, the hidden harbor, and others, so fans of the Hardy Boys will enjoy those Easter eggs.  And while the author did not fill the book with explicit sex (as many authors of parodies seem wont to to do), there is a considerable amount of vulgarities, including the "f---" word, that many times feels forced for no particular reason.

I will say there is one supporting character introduced into the story that, when he is killed off near the end of the book, I was rather disappointed.  I hadn't even realized how much I liked the character until the climactic battle in the drug dealer's sanctuary that resulted in this death.  I won't spoil it by telling you who the character is, but let's just say that no one is very safe in this book.  

Now, about that cover art ... I am surprised that they can get away with using the actual cover art from The Flickering Torch Mystery by Rudy Nappi.  Sure, someone took a marker and drew things all over the art, but it's still without a doubt the same art that Nappi painted for the revised 22nd volume of the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories.  Perhaps they can claim it is a "parody" of the original cover by the addition of the sharpee-drawn bong, smoke, and God-knows what else on the cover.

And, although this is touted as book 1 in a series,and there is a reference to the Hearty Bros' next mystery at the end of the final chapter ("They didn't know it yet, but they would in The Case of the Muff Diver's Muff Cave), there does not appear to be any second book in the series, at least not on Amazon or anywhere else that I can find.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since, although I did get a chuckle or two out of this book, I don't know if I could sit through another one.

RATING:  5 fresh glasses of water with lemon wedges out of 10 for giving fans a parody that is NOT focused solely on sexual situations.