Mystery of the Phantom Heist

I'm going to be bluntly, cruelly honest: I did not enjoy this book at all. There was one single good thing about this book and the rest was a high school mess and I do not read the Hardy Boys books for that.

The Good
We have the return of Chet and Iola! Yes! Two of the original friends of our boys are back. Of course, there is no explanation as to why they weren't in the first in the series - nor are any of the other school kids that were in the first book in this one. But I would have forgiven a lot for Chet and Iola. (Just not this book.)

The Bad
I do not like the mystery here at all. Look, I don't remember the Hardy Boys books that I used to read very well, but never remember them going up against other high school student. Honestly, this was...peril-less. I NEVER felt any real danger. Even the first book in this series had some slight peril and danger. This one has none.

The Ugly
...The usage of crush-at-first-sight. Frank meets a girl that he is immediately drawn to. Okay. Not fine, but I can deal with it. She makes a few possibly suspicious actions. Joe calls her out on that to Frank. Frank literally will not listen to Joe, doesn't want to hear it and puts blinders on. Of course Joe was right, which I knew LONG before Joe even did. Also the reasoning behind the ‘case' they were solving. (HUGE spoiler!) I do wonder what C's girlfriend thinks about C's reason for doing all this is to get back at the girl he had a crush on that kept turning him down. Like, for example, does she think her boyfriend actually likes her and yet is still totally obsessed with this other girl?

Look, there are plenty of YA high school drama llama books. I know. I have, unfortunately, read some of them. I did not expect it here. I also did not want it here.

(It seems unbelievable, but, so far, this series is even worse than the Nancy Drew Diaries.)