The Missing Chums

What is a mime doing reading audiobooks? Bill Irwin may remain silent in his guest appearances on Sesame Street (as the first Mister Noodle) or on "Northern Exposure" (as a circus performer), but his voice is worth hearing. In the fourth of the classic Hardy Boys Mysteries, a series of scuffles at the local shantytown lead Frank and Joe Hardy into an underworld of stolen goods and bank robberies. The Hardy brothers' friends, Chet and Biff, are missing, probably abducted. This seventy-five-year-old series has taken a bad rap for being dated and trite, but, due in large part to Irwin's earnest reading, the story still holds up. A full repertoire of music and sound effects are used throughout the story to help push the action and set the atmosphere. S.E.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine