#20 Witness To Murder (30th Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: October 1988
Written By: Barbara Steiner

Plot: Joe is arrested for murder!  When the former boyfriend of Joe's current girlfriend, Annie Shea, shows up in town to take her away, Joe tries to help Annie, but ends up with a dead man on the hood of the van.  But then it turns out that $3 million dollars in diamonds has been stolen, and somehow Annie and her old boyfriend are involved.

Review:  This is one book where the Hardy's are really at heads with each other, which is something that you don't see often.  Of course, this is the second book in 3 books where a Hardy family member is accused of murder (Aunt Gertrude in #18 A Killing In The Market and now Joe, and in 3 books, Fenton will be accused of murder---I can' t think of a book where Frank or Laura is accused).

Of course, this is the first book in the Casefiles series that I can think of where it is mentioned that the van has bullet-proof screens that drop down over the windows. 

I also found it interesting that, while this book was written in the third person, Barbara Steiner was switching back and forth between Frank and Joe quite a bit, and for quite a while in the middle of the book (for about 4 or 5 chapters) it was just a Joe story!  Frank was left back in Bayport, while Joe was out with Annie running around New York State.  It was kind of an early version of the Undercover Brothers or Adventures with its chapters that switch betwwen Frank and Joe.

Anyway, it was a pretty good book, lots of action, however, the author never did explain how the Private Investigator for the company that was shipping the diamonds or how the criminals were able to constantly keep catching up with the Hardy's.  The author never had the Hardy's check their van for any radio transmitters, sicne it seemed like the PI and the crooks had an electronic tracker on the van.

Rating; 7/10.

[MacGyver]

This is another book I haven't read in a very long time and I remember very little of it (though I did recall Joe had a girlfriend named Annie in this book)- but the reviews are making me want to read this series again!

[tomswift2002]

Really, re-reading the Casefiles (and even the Originsl series) is showing me just how pale the UB's and Adventures are in comparison.