The Mystery of Cabin Island

The Mystery of Cabin Island by Franklin W. Dixon (1929) This is the eighth Hardy Boy Mystery and a favorite one to many, including me. It doesn't have the best mystery, and it doesn't have the high weirdness of many of the original texts of the early Hardys, but it's maybe the best winter kid's book I've read—and I love the winter ones. The Hardys, Frank and Joe, along with friends Chet and Biff, get permission to spend Christmas week at a rustic cabin on an island out in the bay near where they live. They reach it by ice boat (there's a lot of ice boating action in this book). There are some intense snow storms, of course—almost the highlight of the book for me. Being in a cabin, in weather, and making good food. You almost don't need a mystery. But there is one, with some unsavory characters—though no one really too bad, which is actually kind of nice. Oh, also, there's clue involving a cipher! You can't beat that (and you can try to solve it yourself, if you like that kind of thing). The only downside of this book, for me, was almost an entire chapter involving a fox hunt (if you're a hunter, you might be into this). These were different times. The kids have guns with them. I could never hunt animals, and especially not foxes—there are some near where I live, and they're pretty cute! I used to get a Hardy Boy book every Christmas when I was a kid, and it must have been a pretty good one the year I got this book and started reading it next to the fireplace. I've read it over several times since. That first night they're on Cabin Island, a delicious dinner, and then to bed with the wind howling—and then the ghost! It's the best.