Dead on Target (The Hardy Boys)

Dead on Target is the first book in The Hardy Boys Casefiles series of detective novels. It was first published in the year 1987.

Plot summary
Joe Hardy's girlfriend, Iola Morton, is caught in a car bomb and dies. Joe is unable to believe it. The brothers begin their investigation. They meet a person who calls himself the "Gray Man," from a government agency called "The Network." Frank and Joe take his help to get to the person who planted the bomb. Soon they learn that it is not a person, but a group of terrorists who call themselves "Assassins."

Joe vows to kill them. As the story progresses, some Assassins are killed in encounters while others escape. They come to know that the person who killed Iola is a member of The Assassins named Al-Rousasa.

When the book is about to end, Frank, Joe, Chet (who is Iola's brother) and their other friends begin searching a shopping mall when they learn that the Assassins plan to kill a presidential candidate giving a speech in Bayport. Soon, Joe and Frank have a fight with Al-Rousasa at the top floor. The fight ends with Al-Rousasa falling to his death, and Joe remembers what he had been told - "Nobody takes an Assassin alive."

Differences from original series
As the first volume in the Hardy Boys Casefile series, the novel represented some significant changes from the world established in the original Hardy Boys series. There are more graphic depictions of violence, such as Iola Morton being killed by a terrorist car bomb. Frank and Joe use firearms and investigate murders. Chapters no longer have individual titles, and there are no illustrations. The boys also collaborate with the Gray Man, who represents a cloak-and-dagger crimefighting unit (similar to SKOOL and UGLI in The Secret Agent on Flight 101).