1.
Children's literature
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Childrens literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by children. Modern childrens literature is classified in two different ways, genre or the age of the reader. Childrens literature can be traced to stories and songs, part of an oral tradition. The development of childrens literature, before printing was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many childrens tales were originally created for adults. Since the 15th century, a quantity of literature, often with a moral or religious message, has been aimed specifically at children. The late nineteenth and early centuries became known as the Golden Age of Childrens Literature as this period included the publication of many books acknowledged today as classics. There is no single or widely used definition of childrens literature and it can be broadly defined as anything that children read or more specifically defined as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people. The International Companion Encyclopedia of Childrens Literature notes that the boundaries of genre. are not fixed but blurred, sometimes, no agreement can be reached about whether a given work is best categorized as literature for adults or children. Rowlings Harry Potter series was written and marketed for young adults, the series extreme popularity led The New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for childrens books. Despite the widespread association of childrens literature with picture books, spoken narratives existed before printing, seth Lerer, in the opening of Childrens Literature, A Readers History from Aesop to Harry Potter, says, This book presents a history of what children have heard and read. The history I write of is a history of reception, early childrens literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems that were used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. It was only in the 18th century, with the development of the concept of childhood, that a genre of childrens literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations. French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood that the concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in the past not considered as different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. Pre-modern childrens literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational, during the 17th century, the concept of childhood began to emerge in Europe. Adults saw children as separate beings, innocent and in need of protection, the English philosopher John Locke developed his theory of the tabula rasa in his 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A corollary of this doctrine was that the mind of the child was born blank, and he also suggested that picture books be created for children
2.
Nancy Drew
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Nancy Drew is a fictional American character in a mystery fiction series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer. The character first appeared in 1930, the books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Over the decades, the character evolved in response to changes in US culture, the books were extensively revised and shortened, beginning in 1959, in part to lower printing costs with arguable success. In the revision process, the original character was changed to be less assertive. In the 1980s, an older and more professional Nancy emerged in a new series, The Nancy Drew Files, the original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series started in 1930, and ended in 2004. Launched that same year, the Girl Detective series features Nancy driving an electric vehicle. In 2013, the Girl Detective series ended, and a new current series called Nancy Drew Diaries was launched, illustrations of the character evolved over time to reflect contemporary styles. The character proves continuously popular worldwide, at least 80 million copies of the books have sold. Nancy Drew is featured in five films, two shows, and a number of popular computer games, she also appears in a variety of merchandise sold around the world. Nancy Drew is an amateur sleuth. In the original versions of the series, she is a 16-year-old high school graduate, in the series, she lives in the fictional town of River Heights with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. As a child, she loses her mother and her loss is reflected in her early independence—running a household since the age of ten with a clear-cut servant in early series and deferring to the servant as a surrogate parent in later ones. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries, some of which she stumbles upon, Nancy is often assisted in solving mysteries by her two closest friends, cousins Bess Marvin and George Fayne. Bess is delicate and feminine, while George is a tomboy, Nancy is also occasionally joined by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson, a student at Emerson College. Nancy is often described as a super girl, in the words of Bobbie Ann Mason, she is as immaculate and self-possessed as a Miss America on tour. She is as cool as Mata Hari and as sweet as Betty Crocker, Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented, At sixteen she had studied psychology in school, and was familiar with the power of suggestion and association. Nancy was a painter, spoke French, and had frequently run motor boats. She was a driver who at sixteen flashed into the garage with a skill born of long practice
3.
Illegal drug trade
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The illegal drug trade is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs that are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. A UN report has stated that the drug trade generated an estimated US$321.6 billion in 2003. With a world GDP of US$36 trillion in the same year, consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally. Chinese edicts against opium smoking were made in 1729,1796 and 1800, addictive drugs were prohibited in the west in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 19th century, a drug trade in China emerged and as a result. The Chinese government responded by enforcing a ban on the import of opium that led to the First Opium War between the United Kingdom and Qing dynasty China, the United Kingdom won and forced China to allow British merchants to trade opium. Trading in opium was lucrative, and smoking opium had become common in the 19th century, the Second Opium War broke out in 1856, with the British joined this time by the French. In 1868, as a result of the use of opium. Between 1920 and 1933, by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the beginning of the 21st century saw a drug use increase in North America and Europe, with a particularly increased demand for marijuana and cocaine. As a result, international organized crime such as the Sinaloa Cartel. Another illicit drug with increased demand in Europe is hashish, Drug trafficking is widely regarded by lawmakers as a serious offense around the world. Penalties often depend on the type of drug, the quantity trafficked, if the drugs are sold to underage people, then the penalties for trafficking may be harsher than in other circumstances. Drug smuggling carries severe penalties in many countries, sentencing may include lengthy periods of incarceration, flogging and even the death penalty. In December 2005, Van Tuong Nguyen, a 25-year-old Australian drug smuggler, was hanged in Singapore after being convicted in March 2004, in 2010, two people were sentenced to death in Malaysia for trafficking 1 kilogram of cannabis into the country. The countries of production and transit are some of the most affected by the drug trade. For example, Ecuador has absorbed up to 300,000 refugees from Colombia who are running from guerrillas, paramilitaries, while some applied for asylum, others are still illegal immigrants. The drugs that pass from Colombia through Ecuador to other parts of South America create economic, Honduras, through which an estimated 79% of cocaine passes on its way to the United States, has the highest murder rate in the world
4.
United States Coast Guard
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The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the countrys seven uniformed services. This has happened twice, in 1917, during World War I, created by Congress on 4 August 1790 at the request of Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Marine, it is the oldest continuous seagoing service of the United States. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton headed the Revenue Marine, by the 1860s, the service was known as the U. S. Revenue Cutter Service and the term Revenue Marine gradually fell into disuse, the modern Coast Guard was formed by a merger of the Revenue Cutter Service and the U. S. Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915, under the U. S. Department of the Treasury. As one of the five armed services, the Coast Guard has been involved in every U. S. war from 1790 to the Iraq War. As of 2014 the Coast Guard had over 36,000 men and women on duty,7,350 reservists,29,620 auxiliarists. In terms of size, the U. S. Coast Guard by itself is the worlds 12th largest naval force. Because of its authority, the Coast Guard can conduct military operations under the U. S. Department of Defense or directly for the President in accordance with Title 14 USC 1–3. The Coast Guards enduring roles are maritime safety, security, to carry out those roles, it has 11 statutory missions as defined in 6 U. S. C. §468, which include enforcing U. S. law in the worlds largest exclusive economic zone of 3.4 million square miles, the Coast Guards motto is the Latin phrase, Semper Paratus. In a 2005 article in Time magazine following Hurricane Katrina, the author wrote, the Coast Guards most valuable contribution to may be as a model of flexibility, and most of all, spirit. Wil Milam, a swimmer from Alaska told the magazine, In the Navy. Practicing for war, training for war, in the Coast Guard, it was, take care of our people and the mission will take care of itself. The Coast Guard carries out three basic roles, which are subdivided into eleven statutory missions. Both agencies maintain rescue coordination centers to coordinate this effort, and have responsibility for military and civilian search and rescue. The two services jointly provide instructor staff for the National Search and Rescue School that trains SAR mission planners and coordinators, previously located on Governors Island, New York, the school is now located at Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown at Yorktown, Virginia. The NRC also takes Maritime Suspicious Activity and Security Breach Reports, details on the NRC organization and specific responsibilities can be found in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan. The Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement database system is managed and used by the Coast Guard for tracking pollution, the five uniformed services that make up the U. S
5.
Tom Swift
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Tom Swift is the main character of five series of American juvenile science fiction and adventure novels that emphasize science, invention and technology. First published in 1910, the series more than 100 volumes. The character was created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Toms adventures have been written by various ghostwriters, beginning with Howard Garis. Most of the books are credited to the collective pseudonym Victor Appleton, the 33 volumes of the second series use the pseudonym Victor Appleton II for the author. For this series, and some of the series, the main character is Tom Swift. New titles have been published as recently as 2007, most of the various series emphasized Toms inventions. The books generally describe the effects of science and technology as wholly beneficial, translated into many languages, the books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Tom Swift has also been the subject of a board game, several famous people, including Steve Wozniak and Isaac Asimov, have cited Tom Swift as an inspiration. Several inventions, including the Taser, have been inspired allegedly by Swifts fictional inventions, TASER is said to be an acronym for Thomas A. Swifts Electric Rifle. In his various incarnations, Tom Swift, usually a teenager, is inventive and science-minded, Swift by name, Tom is portrayed as a natural genius. In the earlier series, he is said to have had formal education, the character modeled originally after such inventors as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison. For most of the five series, each book concerns Toms latest invention, often Tom must protect his new invention from villains intent on stealing Toms thunder or preventing his success, but Tom is always successful in the end. Many of Tom Swifts fictional inventions described actual technological developments, Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers was based on Charles Parsonss attempts to synthesize diamonds using electric current. Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone was published in 1912, one source claims the process for sending photographs by telephone was not developed until 1925. However, the first commercial wired telefax service was established in 1865, Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera features a portable movie camera, not invented until 1923 according to one source. However, many early movie cameras were portable by one man, other inventions of Toms have not happened, such as the device for silencing airplane engines that he invents in Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer. In any case, technical ideas are often described speculatively by newspapers, Stratemeyer invented the series to capitalize on the market for childrens science adventure. The Syndicates authors created the Tom Swift stories by first preparing an outline with the plot elements, the books were published using the house pseudonym Victor Appleton
6.
OCLC
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The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
7.
The Hardy Boys
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The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in various mystery series for children and teens. The books are published under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon, the Hardy Boys have evolved in various ways since their first appearance in 1927. Beginning in 1959, the books were revised, partially to eliminate racial stereotypes. The books were written in a simpler style in an attempt to compete with television. Some critics argue that in the process, the Hardy Boys changed, becoming more respectful of the law and simultaneously more affluent, agents of the ruling class. Most, however, saw the updates as an attempt to make the style of the more modern. Similar complaints were made about the updates to the comparable girls series Nancy Drew, a new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series ended in 2005, a new series, Undercover Brothers, was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person. The Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by The Hardy Boys Adventures, through all these changes, the characters have remained popular. The books sell more than a million copies a year, several additional volumes are published annually, and the boys adventures have been translated into more than 25 languages. The Hardy Boys have been featured in games and five television shows and used to promote merchandise such as lunchboxes. The Hardy Boys are fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives and they live in the city of Bayport on Barmet Bay with their father, detective Fenton Hardy, their mother, Laura Hardy, and their Aunt Gertrude. Frank, the brother, is eighteen, and his younger brother Joe is seventeen. The brothers nominally attend high school in Bayport, where they are in the same grade, in the older stories, the Hardy Boys cases are often linked to the confidential cases their detective father is working on. He sometimes asks them for help, while at times they stumble upon villains. In the Undercover Brothers series, begun in 2005, the Hardys are members of a known as American Teens Against Crime. The Hardy Boys are constantly involved in adventure and action, despite frequent danger, the boys never lose their nerve. They are hardy boys, luckier and more clever than anyone around them and they live in an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue, Never were so many assorted felonies committed in a simple American small town
8.
Publishers Weekly
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Publishers Weekly is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, “The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling, with 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews. The magazine was founded by bibliographer Frederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s, the publication was a compilation of information about newly published books, collected from publishers and from other sources by Leypoldt, for an audience of booksellers. By 1876, Publishers Weekly was being read by nine tenths of the booksellers in the country, in 1878, Leypoldt sold The Publishers Weekly to his friend Richard Rogers Bowker, in order to free up time for his other bibliographic endeavors. Eventually the publication expanded to include features and articles, harry Thurston Peck was the first editor-in-chief of The Bookman, which began in 1895. Peck worked on its staff from 1895 to 1906, and in 1895, in 1912, Publishers Weekly began to publish its own bestseller lists, patterned after the lists in The Bookman. These were not separated into fiction and non-fiction until 1917, when World War I brought an increased interest in non-fiction by the reading public. Born April 12,1879, in Malden, Massachusetts, Melcher began at age 16 in Bostons Estes & Lauriat Bookstore and he moved to Indianapolis in 1913 for another bookstore job. In 1918, he read in Publishers Weekly that the editorship was vacant. He applied to Richard Rogers Bowker for the job, was hired and he remained with R. R. Bowker for 45 years. While at Publishers Weekly, Melcher began creating space in the publication, in 1919, he teamed with Franklin K. Mathiews, librarian for the Boy Scouts of America, and Anne Carroll Moore, a librarian at the New York Public Library, to create Children’s Book Week. When Bowker died in 1933, Melcher succeeded him as president of the company, in 1943, Publishers Weekly created the Carey–Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it in honor of Mathew Carey and Isaiah Thomas. In 2008, the circulation was 25,000. It attempts to serve all involved in the creation, production, marketing and sale of the word in book, audio, video. The book review section of Publishers Weekly was added in the early 1940s and grew in importance during the 20th century and through the present time. It currently offers prepublication reviews of 9,000 new trade books each year, in a range of genres and including audiobooks and e-books. These anonymous reviews are short, averaging 200–250 words, and it is not unusual for the section to run as long as 40 pages. In the past, a book review editorial staff of eight editors assigned books to more than 100 freelance reviewers, some are published authors, and others are experts in specific genres or subjects
9.
D. E. Stevenson
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Dorothy Emily Stevenson was a best-selling Scottish author. She published more than 40 light romantic novels over a span of more than 40 years, Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1892. Her father was David Alan Stevenson, an engineer and first cousin to author Robert Louis Stevenson. A commemorative plaque marking the house where she was born was mounted in 2016 and she began writing at a young age but hid her efforts because her parents and governesses disapproved. Her father refused to send her to university, lest she become a bluestocking, in 1916 Stevenson married James Reid Peploe, a captain in the 6th Ghurkha Rifles. Her 1932 novel Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, which describes her life as a British army wife, was based on her personal diary and she wrote most of her books while living in the town of Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Her novels were best-sellers, with more than seven million copies printed and her last book was published in 1969. Stevenson published under the name DE Stevenson or D. E. Stevenson, Stevenson published three volumes of poetry, two of them before her novels. Miss Buncles Book,1934 Miss Buncle Married,1936 The Two Mrs, Miss Buncle spills into The Four Graces as well as Spring Magic, and her book is described in Anna and her Daughters. Celias House inspired Listening Valley, where Celia makes a re-appearance and we hear of her again during Anna and Her Daughters. Anna pops up briefly in the Katherine books which link with Charlotte Fairlie, later Sarah Morris ends up in Ryddelton in Sarahs Cottage to be befriended by Debbie and to hear about Tonia and Charlotte Fairlie. More links exist from the Katherine books, via Mr Sandford the lawyer, the Katherine books also tell us more about MacAslan who we first meet in Smouldering Fire. Stevensons last book, The House of the Deer revisits the MacAslan family in the second generation, Gerald and Elizabeth enter into the saga around Drumburly and re-introduce Freda from Five Windows. Jock from the Music in the Hills trilogy also knows of Freda, bel Lamington links into these books. Bels friend Margaret was a Musgrave, and there are links from The Musgraves to The Tall Stranger, the Musgraves give a tenuous link back to Ryddelton via The Mulberry Coach, a story written by one of Annas daughters and nearly performed by Delia Musgrave. Another recurring character is the author Janetta Walters, whose light romantic novels are either loved or loathed by Stevenson characters and we first hear of her books in Mrs. Tim Carries On and Spring Magic. She appears in person in The Two Mrs. Abbotts and The Four Graces, some of Stevensons most popular books are being reissued. Persephone Books reprinted Miss Buncles Book in 2008 and Miss Buncle Married in 2011, Mrs. Tim of the Regiment was reprinted by Bloomsbury in 2010
10.
The Tower Treasure
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The Tower Treasure is the first volume in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 55th on Publishers Weeklys All-Time Bestselling Childrens Book List for the United States and this book is one of the Original 10, generally considered by historians and critics of childrens literature to be the best examples of all the Hardy Boys, and Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing. This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by Leslie McFarlane in 1927, between 1959 and 1973 the first 38 volumes were systematically revised as part of a project directed by Harriet Adams, Edward Stratemeyers daughter. While some volumes only had minor changes, the version of this book had the plot significantly rewritten in 1959 by Harriet S. Adams. The story begins with Frank and Joe Hardy barely avoiding being hit by a driver who they notice has bright red hair. Later, this same red-haired driver attempts a ferryboat ticket office robbery and successfully steals a yellow jalopy called Queen from the Hardys friend, due to one witness reporting that the villain had dark hair, the Hardys assume he is using a red wig. It is learned that the returned to Chets home to steal a tire, helping Frank. Hurd Applegate is convinced that the Towers caretaker, Henry Robinson, is the guilty party, the only proof of Henry Robinsons guilt is that he was suddenly able to pay off a debt, and refused to reveal where he got the money to pay off the debt. The Hardys suspect that the man may be involved with the Tower robbery and search the place where The Queen was found. The Hardys dad, detective Fenton Hardy, learns that the wig was manufactured in New York City, the three Hardys go to New York and learn of a criminal named John Red Jackley who is fond of using disguises. Soon, Jackley is injured in a railroad handcar accident causing him to be hospitalized, about to die, Jackley confesses that he committed the Tower Mansion robbery and put the loot in the old tower… Jackley dies before he is able to explain further. After searches inside and outside of the Tower Mansion the stolen loot is still not found, Frank and Joe decide to go to the railroad where Jackley used to work to find out more information. While investigating, they see two water towers nearby, the Hardys realize that Jackley was referring to the old water tower and not the Tower Mansion. Inside the water tower they find the items but are locked in the tower by a man calling himself Hobo Johnny. Johnny feels that anything in the tower belongs to him, Frank and Joe break out of the water tower and return the securities and jewelry. Then they are rewarded a thousand dollars for returning the missing jewels, in the original version of the book Henry admits that a man who owed him money repaid a debt to him, but he was not allowed to tell anyone in case the mans other debtors found out. This was revised in the 1959 version such that Adelia reveals that she loaned Henry Robinson the money to pay off his debt. Following the revelations and with the stolen loot returned, Hurd re-hires Henry with an increase in salary, Adelia Applegate Hurd Applegate Chief Collig Fenton Hardy Frank Hard Joe Hardy Laura Hardy John ‘‘Red’’ Jackley Hobo Johnny Chet Morton Iola Morton Mr. Morton Mrs. Morton Henry Robinson Mrs
11.
The Secret of the Old Mill
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The Secret of the Old Mill is Volume 3 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 86th on Publishers Weeklys All-Time Bestselling Childrens Book List for the United States and this book is one of the Original 10, some of the best examples of the Hardy Boys, and Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing. This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by Leslie McFarlane in 1927, between 1959 and 1973 the first 38 volumes of this series were systematically revised as part of a project directed by Harriet Adams, Edward Stratemeyers daughter. The original version of book was rewritten in 1962 by Alistair Hunter resulting in two different stories with the same title. The Hardy boys learn a case of money is somehow intertwined with a national security case their dad is working on. Frank and Joe help prevent 14-year-old cyclist Ken Blake from getting killed in an accident, as they help the boy up they see he is delivering an envelope to Victor Peters, a name that means something to the Hardys later on in the book. Later, Joe is awakened by a sound and sees a mysterious figure bicycling away from the Hardys home. While investigating the disturbance a note is found that reads, Drop case or else danger for you and your family. The Hardy boys are not sure if this refers to the counterfeiting case that Frank and Joe are investigating or another case their detective dad. The Hardys go with Chet, who wants to apply for a job at Elekton Controls, a missile-development company, but are told by Mr. Markel, one of Elektons security guards, that there are no openings. Before leaving, they notice a bike that looks similar to the one ridden by Ken Blake, the Hardys, their girlfriends, Iola Morton and Callie Shaw and Chet go nearby to have a picnic but an arrow is shot at them with an attached note reading, Danger. The Hardy brothers receive a gift of a motorboat they call The Sleuth, Tony says the construction supply yard he is working at for the summer has become the latest to receive counterfeit money used to pay for lumber by a boy matching the description of Ken Blake. The Hardys take The Sleuth to the mill to investigate and find the mill wheel starting and stopping, soon, they are attacked and left without gas in their new boat. They recover and get back to investigating by finding Ken who says he thinks someone has used his bike the night that Joe saw someone bicycling from the Hardys home. Markel and Docker pull Ken away and then a suspicious vehicle leaves Elekton, later, the same suspicious vehicle gets away before an explosion at Elekton. Frank and Joe are terrified that their dad is inside the burning building, eager to learn more from Ken, the Hardys soon find that Ken has been released from Elekton. The Hardys find him at a house and he explains that the bricks. Frank and Joe return to the old mill and realize that the mill is set up to act as a signaling device for the people living inside
