''The Short-Wave Mystery'' is Volume 24 in the original

The Hardy Boys The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that stumped their adult counterpa ...

Mystery Stories published by

Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. Today, through the Penguin Gro ...

. This book was written for the

Stratemeyer Syndicate The Stratemeyer Syndicate was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. They published and ...

Leslie McFarlane Charles Leslie McFarlane (October 25, 1902 – September 6, 1977) was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker, who is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful ''Hardy Boys'' series, using the ...

in 1945. Between 1959 and 1973 the first 38 volumes of this series were systematically revised as part of a project directed by

Harriet Adams Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (December 12, 1892 – March 27, 1982) was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many boo ...

, Edward Stratemeyer's daughter.''The Hardy Boys Online:'' Revisions
/ref> The original version of this book was rewritten in 1966 by David Grambs resulting in two different stories with the same title.

Plot

Revised edition

The Hardy boys are drawn into a mystery when a group of thieves steals a collection of

stuffed animals A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...

from an

estate sale An estate sale or estate liquidation is a sale or auction to dispose of a substantial portion of the materials owned by a person who is recently deceased or who must dispose of their personal property to facilitate a move. Reasons for an estate ...

. Later, the Hardy boys notice a station wagon carrying stuffed animals, but when they try to give chase, the car gets away, leaving only a broken

ham radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

antenna behind. While they are discussing the case that their father Fenton Hardy is working on, they learn that he is after a group involved in

industrial espionage Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security. While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governmen ...

and that this group uses code words very similar to what the boys have been hearing transmitted over the ham radio bands. When the Hardy boys visit the estate to investigate the remaining stuffed animals, they are knocked unconscious and someone steals the remaining animals. They manage to get their hands on two of them and convince their friend

Chet Morton Many characters have appeared in the fictional series of books about The Hardy Boys. Character history Original series At the beginning of the original Hardy Boys series, Frank is only 16 years old (as opposed to 18 after the revisions betwee ...

, who has recently taken up taxidermy as a hobby, to open them up looking for whatever may be hidden inside. After the Lectrex plant is raided, the boys go with their father to investigate, and they notice a stuffed fox that had been on a ledge in the conference room has mysteriously disappeared. The Hardy Boys travel to Canada (somewhere near

Moosonee Moosonee () is a town in northern Ontario, Canada, on the Moose River approximately south of James Bay. It is considered to be "the Gateway to the Arctic" and has Ontario's only saltwater port. Nearby on Moose Factory Island is the community of ...

and

Moose Factory Moose Factory is a community in the Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Moose Factory Island, near the mouth of the Moose River, which is at the southern end of James Bay. It was the first English-speaking settlement in lands no ...

) to solve the theft of the stuffed animals and to break up an industrial spy ring, which was the source of the leak of info coming from the Lectrex factory in their hometown of Bayport. As the boys piece together parts of this mystery, they solve the industrial spying case their father was working on, they solve the mystery of the coded transmissions on the ham radio bands, and they find out why a group was stealing the stuffed animals.

Original edition

The Hardy Boys hear a mysterious call for help on their shortwave radio set: "Help -- Hudson". Meanwhile, Fenton Hardy is investigating nation-wide thefts of radio equipment by a group of criminals called "The Hudson Gang". But of more immediate concern is the theft of several auction items, at an auction attended by Chet Morton and the Hardy Boys. The stolen items are mostly animal skins and carcasses intended for use in taxidermy, Chet's latest hobby. Investigating all the seemingly unrelated mysteries leads to some connections. Spike Hudson, leader of the Hudson Gang, uses a house near Bayport as a hideout—a house which has vicious-looking stuffed animals hidden around it at strategic points to discourage unwanted snooping. And the "Help -- Hudson" message, though initially thought to be from or about Spike Hudson, seems to instead be from a group of stranded researchers trapped somewhere on the isolated coast of Hudson's Bay...near to where Spike Hudson has another hideout. Soon, the Hardy Boys are travelling by plane to the fictional White Bear River in remote

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Provi ...

, Canada (references in the book place it most likely somewhere near

and

) to try to solve the thefts, rescue the researchers, and break up The Hudson Gang.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Short-Wave Mystery, The The Hardy Boys books 1945 American novels 1945 children's books 1966 American novels 1966 children's books Novels set in Northern Ontario Grosset & Dunlap books