It’s a case of hidden identities for brother detectives Frank and Joe in the in the eighteenth book in the thrilling Hardy Boys Adventures series. The Hardy brothers and Frank’s new girlfriend, Jones, are attending a local comic book convention on the shore. They meet up with Jones’s friend Harper, a fellow comics super fan, on the boardwalk outside the convention. The four of them spend hours running from booth to booth and end the perfect day with pizza at Harper’s short-term rental apartment. Things don’t stay so perfect, though. On the way home, Jones realizes she switched phones with Harper by accident and she is getting some really scary texts. When they show up at the apartment the next day, they find it totally destroyed and Harper is missing. Frank and Joe start digging into their new friend’s life, hoping to find out where she might have gone, but the more they find out about her, the more mysterious she becomes. Can Frank and Joe find this secretive character? Or has she disappeared forever? Franklin W. Dixon is the author of the ever-popular Hardy Boys books. The Disappearance 1 GEEKING OUT JOE YOU GUYS,” MY BROTHER’S GIRLFRIEND, Jones, suddenly gasped, staring at her phone with her mouth hanging wide open. “Oh. My. Gosh. Did you know—” “That the whole cast of Mercury Man will be there, signing autographs?” Frank finished, then pulled off the Garden State Parkway, following the exit for Atlantic City. “Yeah, but unfortunately, it’s a ticketed event. We would have had to get our tickets, like, six months ago. And we didn’t even know each other then!” Jones beamed at him from the passenger seat (“Girlfriends automatically get shotgun,” Frank had told me with some regret as he’d kicked me out of the seat when we picked up Jones) but shook her head, her straight black hair, cut just below her chin, barely moving. “I can’t believe we’ve only known each other for a month. Like, was there ever a time we weren’t together? But no . . . I was going to tell you that Breakwater Comics is going to have a booth.” She pressed a button to put her phone to sleep and placed it in her lap. “Tiny little comics store in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but they have this amazing website. The owner is almost more like a curator than a straight seller—he finds some amazing stuff.” She let out a satisfied sigh, settling back in the seat and looking straight ahead. “I’m going to check out his booth, like, first thing.” “After we go by the Hellion booth to get our free comic,” Frank said with a smile. “Remember? They’re only printing it for this convention.” “Oh my gosh,” Jones replied. “I can’t believe I almost forgot. There’s just so much to get excited about!” In the backseat, I cleared my throat. “Like lunch!” I put in. “Remember, you guys said we could check out the boardwalk. I want to get some saltwater taffy.” That might sound a little childish. But saltwater taffy, especially consumed on a boardwalk, just minutes after it was pulled, is freakin’ amazing. That’s a fact. Jones turned back to me with a slightly surprised look, like she’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, of course, Joe,” she said. “The Comic-Con is in Boardwalk Hall, which is right there. But maybe after we do all the time-sensitive things at the convention.” What am I doing? I wondered. I waited until she turned around before frowning out at the flat sandy land that bordered the Atlantic City Expressway. How had I, Joe Hardy, Relatively Cool Guy, ended up spending the first Saturday of my spring break driving to a comic book convention in Atlantic City with my older brother and his girlfriend? Surely there were cooler things I could be doing, like—well, anything. It’s not that I don’t like comics, or, more specifically, comic book movies. I went to see Wonder Woman and Black Panther like everyone else, and I will admit, they were totally awesome. But unlike Frank, I don’t have whole boxes of comic books hidden under my bed, and I can’t spend hours debating with you which Doctor Who was the best or whether the campy Batman television series from the 1960s should be considered “canon” or not. Know who can, though? Jones. Jones isn’t bad. I mean, she’s pretty cool. She’s really friendly and never seems to have a problem with my hanging out with them, even if I sigh loudly and roll my eyes every time they start to act mushy. She’s also supersmart. She’s probably smarter than Frank. Jones is homeschooled, which means she helps set her own curriculum and decides what she wants to study. So she has a wealth of knowledge about random, obscure topics, and she can spend hours telling you interesting facts about octopi (that’s more than one octopus, FYI) or the history of Barbados or who assassinated James Garfield (it was this weird guy named Charles Guiteau—look him up). Yeah, Jones is pretty cool. The thing is—ever since Frank met her at a book signing last month, he and Jones have been inseparable. I wake up on a Saturday morning, a