The Secret Agent on Flight 101: A Dixonian Treatise on Fantastic Normalcy

by Brian Porick

"How can the hand be quicker than the eye? That's hard to believe!" (Dixon 1) remarks Chet Morton to open The Secret Agent on Flight 101, Franklin W. Dixon's 46th entry into the Hardy Boys mystery series. In typical Dixonian fashion, this statement contains more truth than a quick reading might lead one to believe. The Secret Agent on Flight 101 has long been criticized as one of the worst books in the Hardy Boys canon. It is easy to see how that might be the case. Critics point to lack of continuity and sheer absurdity of the events described within as being evidence as to the book's failure to be grounded in plausibility. However, Dixon's opening statement makes the more observant reader realize that much like the hand can indeed be quicker than the eye (as hard as it is to believe), the fantastic can be more true to reality than the mundane. The point Dixon is attempting to make is that normalcy is not equivalent to ordinariness; rather, people's lives can often be comprised of a series of extra-ordinary moments, and it is quite a normal thing. This is particularly the case for the likes of Frank and Joe Hardy, as they are asked to trace an international ring of spies headed up by a particulary slippery magician named the Incredible Hexton.

One cue that Dixon throws the reader that he is up to more than what seems is through his use of absurd acronyms. After 45 volumes of contemplative, complex thought, it is hard for any Hardy Boys fan to really think that Dixon would present his audience with such an obvious example of silliness. One has to admit that the acronyms for the Undercover Global League of Informants (or UGLI) and Secret Knowledge of
Organized Lawbreakers (or SKOOL) (Dixon 13-14) are nothing less than insulting. Why would a reader ever believe that these could pass as legitimate acronyms of espionage organizations? But that is precisely Dixon's point. He wants his reader to realize that the mere fact that these are such laughable acronyms is to cause the reader to consider the absurdity of some things that he might consider ordinary.

Another cue toward the end of Dixon's fantastic normalcy is the sheer number of airplane mishaps the Hardys get into over the course of the novel. They are first caught in a plane that is "diving vertically toward the ground" (Dixon 51). Later, Frank manages to get snagged to the tail of a helioplane as it's taking off (Dixon 83), but of course, this doesn't stop him later from climbing out on the wing of a plane thousands of feet in the air in order to remove a bomb from the nacelle of the engine (Dixon 109). One would think by this point, the Hardys would learn to avoid planes altogether, but right near the end of the mystery, they manage to get into a plane which runs out of gas and crashes into the ocean (Dixon 168). Why on earth would Dixon allow this many aerial catastrophes to occur, unless there were a larger purpose behind it all? Thankfully, for the careful Hardy Boys reader this purpose becomes increasingly clear. Isn't it those strange series of occurrences that make one's life fantastic?

Dixon best sums his own point with the words of Jack Wayne, the Hardy's pilot friend. Jack describes flying to the Hardys, but the observant reader quickly realizes that this is a metaphor for the author's larger purpose. Wayne says, "I was once told that flying involves long hours of boredom, interrupted by moments of extreme fright" (Dixon 85). It is the normalcy of the fantastic interrupting the mundane that gives life its interest and keeps us as humans on our toes. There is a certain absurdity to this jaunting rhythmof life, but Dixon points out that perhaps it is best to embrace it instead of trying to supress it. This lesson was clearly important enough to Dixon that he would risk the mass criticism that has come with the release of Secret Agent on Flight 101. If the Hardy Boys fan can look past the critics and find Dixon's underlying threads of truth, he will come away from this book well rewarded.