Ah Nancy Drew. The girl detective who basically set the mold for girl detective. I’ve always wanted to finish this series but never got around to it because I wanted too read it in order and th elibrary always had the next one checked out or something. That’s still the case but I’m going to take what I can. This part one focuses on the Nancy Drew books I was able to find in the university library so it skips around in the series which is no problem since they are pretty stand-alone.

Here I was able to read the first six books-The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, The Bungalow Mystery, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, The Secret of Shadow Ranch, and The Secret of Red Gate Farm.
Followed by several that hop around in the order of the series like The Haunted Bridge, The Clue of Tapping Heels and The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk. Next came some in the 20s, 40s and 50s like The Mystery of the Tolling Bell, The Secret of the Wooden Lady, The Mystery of the 99 Steps, The Invisible Intruder, The Crooked Banister, Mystery of the Glowing Eye, The Secret of the Forgotten City and The Sky Phantom.

Since each story is pretty formulaic and stand-alone I’m just going to detail general thoughts I had as I read.

In the first two books I enjoyed how it established Nancy’s cleverness and observation skills which she clearly inherited from her lawyer father. The first few books also brought back Helen (the woman that Nancy helped in The Secret of the Old Clock) before she disappeared in book 4 with the introduction of Nancy’s steadfast friends, Bess and Helen.

I was also a bit annoyed by the sudden danger in the final few pages like Nancy being kidnapped, a fire or a gun in the denounment as if the authors need one last obstacle before wrapping up the mystery. However, it’s a clear sign of the first book’s popularity that the authors felt free to put Nancy in more danger and show the dramatics and perils of playing freelance detective.

Another thing I noticed in the first six book is how the mystery almost always centered around a hidden or missing inheritance or secret treasure. There’s so much I was starting to think that Nancy’s other subtitle should be Nancy Drew, Treasure Hunter.

After the first six, we skip over to #16-18 starting with The Haunted Bridge. These books put more focus on Nancy’s personal life with her golfing competitions, local theater and more aid from Nancy’s boyfriend, Ned. A boyfriend I find a bit bland and always getting into trouble.

Suitably with the inclusion of Ned everywhere, there’s a bit more romance. Not necessarily between the two but The Clue of Tapping Heels had a romance at its root.

Anyway with the focus on her personal life, while her father often asks for her aid, Nancy is positioned more as the friendly neighborhood sleuth who stumbles on mysteries wherever she goes with an insastiable curiosity.

There’s also different cover art and The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk has different interior art that is more simplistic line drawings. Speaking of that mystery, it had an “exotic” flair introducing Nelda from South Africa who had been unfortunately framed for a crime she didn’t commit and whose pursuers follow her onto to the cruise. Like I said, “exotic” but it had no mention of aparthaid which was interesting. Not that I expect Nancy Drew to tackle the complexities of racism as she struggles to open the titular trunk but I felt like it could have added more depth to Nelda if she had been accused not only because of the wrong-place-wrong-time.

Anyway, onward to Mystery of the Tolling Bell that has some mysterical red herrings with elves and drugs that gave a very unique feel to this stand-alone. I enjoyed this one the most I think.

The Mystery of the 99 Steps takes Nancy and her friends to Paris which just shows that Nancy is using those inheritances she rescued for some fun vacation splurging. Okay, I’m joking, she goes there to help an old governess understand the root of her nightmares. This book shows some of its datedness with Arab stereotypes in the book’s villain that is. . . it just didn’t age well.

From there, The Invisible Intruder plays back to some supernatural happenings that gave me a vague Scooby Doo feel with Nancy figuring out that several thieves are using supernatural spooks to get away with their crimes. The Crooked Banister has a rare sympathy for the villain moment that also adopts a “sci-fi” feel with what looks like a killer robot. But it’s the boxy kind of robot not the actually horrifying AIs from today’s movies.

Mystery of the Glowing Eye was intriguing by putting Ned in a useful role as hostage (though this is like the second time he’s been a hostage as he was also one in The Invisible Intruder), making Nancy take mystery even more personally than before. I also enjoyed how it added some extra upheval with her father dating know-it-all Marty King who tries to butt Nancy out of the mystery and out of her father’s life. Of course, it all works out for Nancy but it would have been interesting if they shifted the status quo with a new woman in her father’s life. I also enjoyed the mad science antagonists’ influenced by the greek cyclops hence the eye having more than one meaning in this book’s title.

The Secret of the Forgotten City also hasn’t aged that well with Nancy and her friends digging into an indigenous reservation as part of a anthropology dig that feels vaguely white savior-ish when she finds the missing gold. I also felt really bad for Bess as she is just a magnate for disaster here from a scorpian crawling on her chest to nearly spraining her ankle when she falls into a pit and her usual weight/diet issues.

Finally, The Sky Phantom was another interesting book I really liked as it linked a land theft of cattle with a sky mystery of phantom bi-plane to create one dangerous menace. Nancy is a bit of too-to-be-true at everything from flying airplanes for the first time and solving two mysteries at once but the twists kept me interested even if I found the characters a bit stale and repetitive by this point.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on 17 of the books. Well 16 as The Secret of the Wooden Lady was a bit forgettable to me even though the cover is really cool. I do wonder how Nancy is affording all these trips and if she ever wants to go to college for forensics. Maybe that should be a spin-off for whoever wants to add Nancy Drew to the loads of reboots and updates saturating the market.

See you in the summer when I can review my local library’s Nancy Drews.