Footprints under the window Book

I read the 1933 edition, which is very different from the revised 1965 edition. In fact, the cover of the book shown is wrong. There are not tropical settings and no army guys in the book I read.

But there sure are cringingly terrible racist stereotypes about Chinese people! If you want to read a novel for kids that literally has phrases like "diabolical, yellow face," have I got a book for you!

The mystery begins with the boys needing to get laundry done in a hurry, because Aunt Gertrude is coming. So they take their bag o' clothes to the Chinese Laundry. Unfortunately, the good, honest Sam Lee no longer runs the Chinese Laundry, and instead there's a guy with a twisted grimace of a grin named Louie Fong running the place.

How evil is he? Why, he can't have their stuff done by tomorrow, even though they need it! It take "thlee, fo' day" (sic).

And then it's not even done! The truth is, they never get their laundry back! Instead, the boys uncover a ring to smuggle Chinamen (sic) into the country - right into Bayport, which, I'm pretty sure, is on America's east coast.

But never mind. There's lots of overheard conversations, knives thrown, trap-doors (sic), disguises, telegraph office messages, and everyday people traveling from town to town by boat like that's a thing people do.

There's also a roadhouse* called "Lantern Land" owned and run by Orientals (sic). 217 pages was a bit much of this. I've had my fill of embarrassing xenophobic Americana for quite a long time.

According to this PDF, I happened upon one of the 3 Hardy Boys' mysteries that are the most racist (the 3 being volumes 12, 13, and 14), and in fact, the racism is one of the reasons people doubt these 3 were written by supposed ghost-writer Leslie McFarlane, who wrote most of the first 25. Volume 13 has old South stereotypes of former slaves, and volume 14 has Mexicans. Whee.

*Road. House. *Whht-Khhhh!*