Strange events involve Frank and Joe Hardy in a mystery which shrouds an ancient treasure—the golden head of the Pharaoh Rhamaton IV. The owner of the million-dollar golden Pharaoh’s head claims it was aboard the freighter Katawa, which sank not far from Whalebone Island. But suspicious developments indicate that Mehmet Zufar may be trying to defraud the shipping line’s insurance company. Frank and Joe enthusiastically accept the challenge of their famous detective father to assist him in investigating the complex case for Transmarine Underwriters.

Private investigator Fenton Hardy enlists the aid of his teenage detective sons in a search for a missing man being sought by an insurance company. All leads to the sailor’s whereabouts have petered out and the boys fly to Iceland, the man’s native land, hoping to find a new clue. From the moment Frank and Joe arrive in Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland, they are in constant danger. In the spine-chilling pursuit that follows, Frank and Joe uncover a diabolical espionage plot that threatens the life of a U.S. astronaut and NASA’S moon project.

One exciting event follows another when Frank and Joe Hardy are hired to apprehend the pickpockets who have been plaguing Solo’s Super Carnival. When their friends Tony Prito and Biff Hooper exhibit a stuffed whale dug up at a construction project, they all but put the carnival out of business. In this thrilling mystery the young detectives pit their wits against a gang of thieves whose bizarre identification, a three-part whale tattoo, proves to be a nearly insolvable riddle.

Caught in their motorboat the Sleuth by a sudden storm at sea, Frank and Joe Hardy are relieved to see the lights of a yacht. But their SOS ignored. The shrill sound of a siren fills the night air and moments later a helicopter drops an object alongside the Sleuth: a wallet containing two thousand dollars! The next day, a truck carrying a shipment of high-powered rifles has been stolen. These two apparently unconnected events are clues in a tangle of mystery which turns out to be one of the detective brothers’ most exciting adventures.