If you grew up reading the Hardy Boys adventures like I did, you will probably be interested in this autobiography. It’s about the man who was the author behind the first fifteen Hardy Boys novels. You may already know that Franklin W. Dixon was a corporate penname, one of sixty-odd such names developed by Edward Stratemeyer as part of his Stratemeyer syndicate—a book publishing assembly line that produced such iconic books as Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. Stratemeyer provided ghost writers with outlines and a $100 check and they wrote the books for him leaving all rights to the syndicate.

Leslie McFarlane was a Canadian author who wrote dozens of books for Stratemeyer over the years. About half of this autobiography provides really interesting insight into those books and series and how the syndicate worked. The other half is about McFarlane’s life. It isn’t without interest, but it’s not why I read the novel. I wanted insight into those early Hardy Boys novels. And while the books he describes are very familiar in feel, they aren’t quite the books that you probably read as a child. That’s because in the 1960s the syndicate updated all the books in the series to make them feel more modern. They also took out what sounded like absolutely wonderful elements in the original series.

For example, did you know that Detective Smuff, long time bungling detective striving to get on the Bayport police force, was originally a Bayport cop? McFarlane made Chief Collig and him look like Keystone Cops but apparently, the syndicate came to the conclusion that it was subversive to make the police look incompetent so that the boy detectives could shine.

Here’s another example. Aunt Gertrude used to be a lot more bossy and yell at the brothers when they got into danger. She still did worry and warn them in the series I read, but it was apparently totally over the top in the original books and it made her one of the most beloved figures in boys’ fiction. That yelling said “I love you” in ways that the readers could accept without feeling like the books hadn’t gotten all mushy on them.

I loved this series growing up and I’ve been enjoying rereading them as an adult. But I have to admit, many of them could have used the humor that McFarlane says he included. And I think it would have been wise to keep the original Aunt Gertrude too.