Published: April 1994
Publisher: Minstrel Books (1994-2000)
Author: Unknown as of October 2023
Plot:
In a case of high adventure and sheer danger, the Hardys may have reached the end of their rope!
Frank and Joe find there's no safe harbor on an island of fear!
The Hardy boys have joined their friend Chet on a visit to his aunt's vacation house on Makatunk, and island just off the coast of Maine. But their spring holiday gets off to a rough and rugged start. A home to fisherman, a haven for artists, and a peaceful hideaway for tourists, Makatunk has suddenly become a magnet for crime!
Frank and Joe discover that some fishermen, environmentalists, and developers are waging war for control of Makatunk ... and someone has decided to fight dirty. When vandals, scandals, and sabotage threaten to destroy the island, the Hardys leap into the fray. But a deadly trap has been set -- and they may well end up as the catch of the day!
Review: It's been years since I read Makatunk. I read Chapter 1 yesterday—-oh boy what a start.
Of course this time, Chet gains an aunt, most likely on his father's side as her name is Emma Morton. It doesn't sound like she's been married or married a Morton, but is single.
It turns out that Makatunk Island is an artists colony---of course we don't see a lot of artists.
It's kind of odd how I was reading this book at a time when in real life a major crime was taking place in Maine (the Robert Card massacre)---since the book is set on an island off the Maine coast. (I can find no record of a real-life Makatunk Island, so the island is very fictitious.) Of course this is not the first time that the Hardy's were in Maine, as they visted Maine in The Outlaw's Silver
Also, Frank, Joe and Chet seem to be slightly off in their characterizations. ALthough, the author kind of brought back an odd character trait of Chet's---painting. Chet enrolled in his uncle's painting course in The Haunted Fort and then later drew comics in The Apeman's Secret.
The author also didn't seem to know much about the Hardy family's backstory, since on page 132 Fenton Hardy is mentioned as being a police detective on the Bayport Police Force.
It was also interesting that when the Hardy's is told that there is no contact with the mainland by phone, that they didn't think to ask about radio contact. This book was written in 1993-94, so cell phone technology was not like it is today, where 5G and 6G phones will rely on both cell towers and satellites to work, however, in 1994, short-wave radio was still around (and it is still around in 2023 and is still, in some cases, more reliable than cell phones) and the Hardy's had used it in the past and you would think that they would've thought of it (sure, they wouldn't have maybe been able to have made a short-wave radio out of random wires from a downed plane or beached boat, like Tom Swift did in Tom Swift and His Wireless Message (1911). However, one would think that somewhere on an island, for emergencies, that there would be short-wave radio!
Overall, it was an okay story.
Rating: 5.5/10
Thanks for the review. I can't say I remember much of anything from this book although I do recall it as one my mom brought back for me from a trip to the USA when I was a kid.
And I will say Mystery on Makatunk Island has a fairly cool cover, anyway.