I got this through the post on Monday which I was surprised at since the first two HBA volumes arrived over a week late. I presumed this was because they weren't being properly published in the UK and Amazon had to ship them themselves once they had North American stock to send out. Anyway, it was a nice surprise to get this one a day early!
Generally I thought the standard of writing was good and the adventure was back to the quality of Secret of the Red Arrow, if not better, and the crimes also manage to retain that "weird" aspect from the first book. It certainly deals with some dark themes, which surprised me, dealing with teenage kidnapping (with a bit more weight than The Missing Chums ever did for example) and touching on drug use.
Has anyone else read it yet?
I read it and I liked parts of it. :) Some people might like to wait until the 4th book, Into Thin Air, is out to read this 3rd book, since it's a two-parter (or more, Idk). I thought some things about The Vanishing Game could have been better than it was, like what was done with the cover scene. I don't think the book was better than Secret of the Red Arrow. And it definitely wasn't better than The Missing Chums especially since The Vanishing Game actually had less action and danger ultimately. But still, there was some good stuff that I liked; the Hardy brothers did really good. 8)
Major spoiler alert about The Vanishing Game plot and whodunit:
It wasn't actual kidnapping with Kelly and Luke since the "victims" were in on it and it was all a hoax. I'm really glad that they were alright.
I just finished the book and the continuity errors were rampant. Now we've had 2 books were the Hardy's have cell phones, and 1 where the don't, while there wasn't even a single mention of "The Deal" from the previous 2 books, which seemed to be a major thing.
Oh, no- I hope this doesn't mean we're going down the path of more error-riddled (in terms of continuity and certainly character) books. (I'm thinking of the Undercover Brothers books here...)
Quote from: tomswift2002 on August 10, 2013, 09:51:11 PM
while there wasn't even a single mention of "The Deal" from the previous 2 books, which seemed to be a major thing.
The threat of the Deal was removed in #2
Mystery of the Phantom Heist and it was explained that the Hardys could now sleuth freely without that threat after they got the Red Arrow. 8) And that's a good thing. :)
Ah- good deal. ;) :) 8)