Showdown at Widow Creek is the eleventh book in the Hardy Boys Adventures by Franklin W. Dixon. The Hardy Boys was originally created by the author Edward Stratemeyer while the new books are written by ghostwriters under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. The original series was first released in 1927, but this book was published 2015 by Aladdin. I listened to the audiobook on this short mystery novel, narrated by Tim Gregory.
Frank sees a pretty girl in a rodeo and decides to go talk to her only to see a couple of thugs try and steal her horse. He stops them and he and his brother get volunteered by chief Olaf to join them drive cattle. During the adventure they encounter several attempts to disturbs the otherwise calm journey, the thugs seem to follow them and the boys need to find out why, preferably before someone get hurt.
Okay, I cannot for the life of me remember the characters the day after when I decided to write this review, which never is a good sign. There was a girl Frank liked, who was rather forward and tough compared to the other girls who were airheads they have in previous books. There were stereotypical cowboys and poaching thugs.
Very western adventure. The author has tried to put in a mystery but frankly, it wasn’t necessary. It was an adventure with a nice message at the end. The boys couldn’t save day, and the culprits wasn’t comprehended by them. Frankly, I think the message would have drove home better if the culprits got away since the message was clearly that not all can be saved but with time all things can heal. A nice and powerful message that reflect the reality, but the author was so focused on it being a western adventure that the culprits has to be caught by a cowboy.
It kind of weakened the message, but still it was a nice interruption from the mysteries who has become rather stale by know. I just which they could have removed most of the little discussions the brother had over the mystery and focused on something else such as developing the relationship between the brothers or making them connect more to the message. Maybe making the boys understand why it is so important to protect the environment from poachers.
Right now, I just feel like the author pulled a lottery saying western adventure and went with it and an editor saying, you need to have a mystery in there, so the author added something little just to satisfy the editor.
It was nice, filled with excitement and cowboy tropes, along with a try of a message to the story, but since the author didn’t focus on the message it feels a bit random. Almost like a coincidence, and it is not really dwelled into enough for it to stick. I like the try of something new, but don’t like the feel of it being half-assed. Overall, I won’t remember this book for long, just as I cannot remember the characters the day after so I cannot give it more than a 5 out of 10, and compliment it for at least trying to do something new even if it didn’t work.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 