#81 The Demon's Den (36th Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

The Demon's Den
Written By: As of September 2020, unknown
Edited by: Lilo Wuenn
Published: 1984
Published by: Wanderer Books (1984-1987), Minstrel Books (1987-1995?), no e-book edition.

Plot: The Hardy Boys, vacationing in Vermont, offer to help the police locate a missing camper and find themselves involved with a doomsday cult, a deadly strain of bacteria, and possibly the devil.  (Library of Congress summary)

(Wanderer Paperback back cover)
A relaxing vacation turns into a nightmare of mystery and danger for the Hardys and their friends Chet Morton and Biff Hooper.  On the trail of a missing Vermont trailer, they find themselves deep in the majestic Canadian timberlands.  At the same time, they are helping Mr. Hardy search for a scientist who is suspected of giving top-secret genetic research to a foreign government.

A spine-tingling chase leads the boys into a land of threatening demons and into the clutches of a desperate and evil criminal.  Fighting against all odds, the Hardys must escape---but will they be able to foil the master plan of a ruthless madman?

Review:  This is one Hardy Boys book which, I think I got in on inter-library loan years ago (like 20 years ago) but I don't recall and I don't recall anything about the story.  So it might even be that I'm reading this for the first time!   But I do remember seeing this book at the Chalk River library years ago (they had, as I recall the entire Wanderer run in paperback) but I didn't really find the title interesting as a kid. 

Now then this is interesting as it's the second of four titles from the Stratemeyer era where we don't know who wrote it.  The other three being Sky Sabotage (although that is probably by Neal Barret, Jr. as he wrote the sequel, The Skyfire Puzzle), The Blackwing Puzzle & Revenge of the Desert Phantom.  Otherwise Lilo Wuenn is the editor on all-4 books.

Also, The Demon's Den is the first Hardy Boys book to be finished by Simon & Schuster.  It was commissioned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, however, because of the sale, it was edited by Simon & Schuster. 

So the Hardy's, Chet and Biff are at Lake Ketchumken in Vermont (this appears to be ficitional lake, as nothing about it comes up on Google, except for The Demon's Den), at Biff's family's cabin on the lake for vacation. Now then, Biff doesn't appear in the story until Chapter 3, when he and his father appear.  Anyway, the Hardy's are out on the lake with Chet, when they spot police cars at a camp on the other side of the lake.  The Hardy's go over to see what is going on, and once over there, they introduce themselves to the police (the first officer doesn't recognize them, but the second guy recognizes the name and has heard of the boys and their father Fenton Hardy) and are asked to help out on the investigation. 

I'm starting to find in the 80's of the series, the Hardy's are getting to be really well known and even if the police have never met the Hardy's before, as soon as they hear the names, they seem to be big fans of the boys and Fenton and cooperate with Frank and Joe.  Of course I remember that in #86 The Mystery of the Silver Star this was kind of rolled back, to where Frank, Joe and their father were not treated as much like rock stars as ordinary people.

[MacGyver]

I will just say a quick word here about this book. Just from the title alone, this is probably one I wouldn't have been allowed to read as a kid- and understandably so. When you've seen demonic activity up close, you know it's nothing to joke with. Thankfully, this book has nothing to do with that, despite its name. (Though it does involve a cult with some weird beliefs, though I don't know that they are actually Satanists or anything.)
   I don't remember much about this book but I do remember that it was actually a pretty great read when I read it a few years ago. The mad scientist made for an interesting villain; I liked the sci-fi aspect of the plot.
   This is also another one of those books that strayed a bit into the supernatural/horror theme that The Hardy Boys books seemed to go through in the wake of the Wanderer era, with #59 Night of the Werewolf kinda starting that trend. (Though some of the Grosset & Dunlap books went that route too- #55 The Witchmaster's Key is an obvious example.)

[tomswift2002]

So I finished the book a few days ago.  It's really interesting, but I thought that the Hardy's had only gone to Halifax in The Twisted Claw[/] and Countdown To Terror (or maybe it was only Countdown To Terror that featured Halifax, while Twisted Claw might've been another Canada Maritime city).  But the Hardy's go to Halifax in The Demon's Den.

Plus the Hardy's travel to Montreal and a few other places in Quebec and New Brunswick.  Although one thing that I found irritating was that the author seemed to think that everyone in Canada was a "French-Canadian", since one of the main criminals was said to be a lumberjack from Saskatchewan, and was described as a "French-Canadian".  Ok Saskatechewan does get French-Canadians moving from Quebec and New Brunswick, but how Frank and Joe could tell that he was a French-Canadian from Saskatchewan, I don't know.  Maybe he had a French accent, but there was no mention of that. 

Also it's interesting how the crooks tried to hijack the legend of Paul Bunyan.  But the other issue is that, even though the book is called The Demon's Den, and both the Wanderer and Minstrel covers feature a hooded figure or figures in a cult convent, and yet, that was a very minor plot point in the book.  Basically, once I was past like Chapter 5, the cult was very rarely mentioned and the Demon's Den was an alternate name to where the crooks were hiding. 

Rating: 8.0/10