The Four-Headed Dragon

When I first read this book back in 1981, I was really intrigued with the description of the mysterious Sayer Mansion near Chet Morton's Farm. Years later, I was thrilled to find out that the mansion in this story was inspired by an actual mansion, called The Winchester Mystery House, a mansion with hundreds of rooms, located in San Jose, California. The mansion is open to the public. The real owner was a lady who was the heiress to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune, but was haunted by "The ghosts" of those people who had been killed by the Winchester Rifle during the Indian Wars in the Old West. She thought that by continuing to build on her mansion year after year, she could appease the spirits. Also, just as in the story, the mansion's owner had secret passages all over the mansion, stairways to nowhere, slept in a different room every night, had a clock tower that rang 13 times at midnight, etc. A few years ago I actually took a nighttime flashlight tour of the mansion. Very spooky!! =)

Sam Radley, Mr. Hardy's assistant, is found wandering in the woods, dazed and confused, and is later kidnapped from the hospital. Is it because he is the only one that can identify the criminal, who is a master of disguise, that Mr. Hardy is after? And just how do the mysterious new tenants of the creepy Sayers mansion fit into the picture? The mystery comes to a climax as Frank, Joe and Chet are trapped in the mansion during a hurricane and must outsmart their enemies before they escape. I really enjoyed this book. It has quite a bit of action and starts off very well; the Hardy's have already had a couple of confrontations with the crooks by the end of chapter 2. The story is rather interesting and the book is fairly well-written (particularly from about page 90 until almost the end of the book, while the hurricane is going on). One thing that I especially liked was that many of the characters of the series were included in the book: Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, Aunt Gertrude, Jack Wayne, Chief Collig, the Mortons, even Ethel Radley was included. Unfortunately, though, none of the Hardy's friends, except Chet, were included. I was a little disappointed with the end of the book as I thought that the crooks were ultimately caught with not that much difficulty, but this doesn't really ruin an otherwise good story. I liked this book and I think that other fans of the series would enjoy it as well.

My son Zack (10 years old) read this for a school assignment. He loves reading this book.

The book's interesting from the start, It starts out that Sam Radley a friend of there's has lost his memory. Then their's a break in at their house. People buy an old mansion and then Sam Radley is kidnapped from the hospital. Good book an suspenseful. The conclusion is great.

I love this book! It is a must read for any Hardy Boy fan! - Derrick Williams 15 (8/3/98)