Overview
A COMEBACK FOR TEENS AT HEART! TOM CHERONES, Emmy Award Winning director of the Seinfeld TV series, brings his sense of humor and narrative timing to his first novel, a delightful spoof on the old Hardy Boys classics.
Tom and Billy HARDLY, along with their chum Whit Moore, have just emerged from 50 years of sleep in a "cryogeriatrically" imposed stated of suspended animation. While their bodies are now those of men in their 70s, their minds are still living in the 1950s. Their father, the famous international sleuth DeVern Hardly, is still going strong in his nineties. Together he and "the boys" set out to locate a mysterious Golden Goblet, a priceless artifact encrusted with "jewels of all sorts: diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and the occasional garnet." Once owned by the prominent Rosenfeld family, it had been captured by the Nazis in WWII, and then retrieved by US forces, only to be snatched from government security by dastardly criminals.
Using their familiar bevy of mechanical devices (motorcycles, roadster, bi-plane, mahogany speedboat) the Hardlys set out on the trail of the objet d'art and the dastardly sociopath George W. Buttman and his cohorts, including the vampish Trafalgar sisters. Their adventure takes place between studies at the local high school, where they have returned to complete their education. And what an education they receive!
Confronted with technologies never dreamed of half-a-century before, they must maneuver their way through a crash course in computers, cell phones, credit cards and other "advancements." To say nothing of the "new morality," a code of behavior casually accepted by their teen contemporaries, but which they had never imagined in "their time." One hilarious episode after another brings the Hardly crew up against the challenges of their new timeframe, as they try to keep their minds on school and the overriding task at hand: solving the Mystery of the Golden Goblet.
