Nancy Drew Books

In this Nancy Drew book Nancy finds herself yet again trying to take a vacation with her friends Bess and George,and as always Nancy's vacation is going to take a turn for the worst when one of her friends (not Bess or George) is involved in a hit-and-run. Before Nancy's friend, Kim, falls unconscious she manages to mumble some words to Nancy. The words Kim mumbled were "Rosita...The...it was...Rosita.", Nancy didn't have much to go on but she knew that the hit-and-run intentional. She had to find out who had ran Kim down and why. Once again Nancy Drew was on the case. The thing I found interesting about this book is that it took place mainly on the beachs of sunny Florida to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The weird thing is that I hate movies and books dealing with captivity on boats or anything dealing with the ocean. This however was a very interesting book that kept me on edge. I really was kept on edge when Nancy was tied to a piler by a man who had knocked her out with a blow to the head. I thought it was very discriptive on telling how Nancy was able to get untied and on the pier before she drowned. There were many characters in the story that I couldn't decide whether they were good or bad. One of the main characters that really got me stuck was Dirk Bowman. He was one of the new guys Bess had picked up. At first he seemed to be good then he started hitting on Nancy and hurt Bess emotionally. Then he took Nancy to a secluded island where I thought he was going to try to kill her, which actually almost happened when her windsurfer broke in half. But later in the book I learned that he was an under cover cop who was trying to solve the same case Nancy was working on. Not only is the book about Nancy's friend being hit by a car but it's also about Kim helping an illegal alien escape the hardship of working on a orchard for the lady that smuggled her into the country. The story unfolds in telling all the details about who and why Kim was almost killed. I recommend this book to any Nancy Drew fan and even to those that just like mysteries.

In this Nancy Drew book Nancy finds herself yet again trying to take a vacation with her friends Bess and George,and as always Nancy's vacation is going to take a turn for the worst when one of her friends (not Bess or George) is involved in a hit-and-run. Before Nancy's friend, Kim, falls unconscious she manages to mumble some words to Nancy. The words Kim mumbled were "Rosita...The...it was...Rosita.", Nancy didn't have much to go on but she knew that the hit-and-run intentional. She had to find out who had ran Kim down and why. Once again Nancy Drew was on the case. The thing I found interesting about this book is that it took place mainly on the beachs of sunny Florida to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The weird thing is that I hate movies and books dealing with captivity on boats or anything dealing with the ocean. This however was a very interesting book that kept me on edge. I really was kept on edge when Nancy was tied to a piler by a man who had knocked her out with a blow to the head. I thought it was very discriptive on telling how Nancy was able to get untied and on the pier before she drowned. There were many characters in the story that I couldn't decide whether they were good or bad. One of the main characters that really got me stuck was Dirk Bowman. He was one of the new guys Bess had picked up. At first he seemed to be good then he started hitting on Nancy and hurt Bess emotionally. Then he took Nancy to a secluded island where I thought he was going to try to kill her, which actually almost happened when her windsurfer broke in half. But later in the book I learned that he was an under cover cop who was trying to solve the same case Nancy was working on. Not only is the book about Nancy's friend being hit by a car but it's also about Kim helping an illegal alien escape the hardship of working on a orchard for the lady that smuggled her into the country. The story unfolds in telling all the details about who and why Kim was almost killed. I recommend this book to any Nancy Drew fan and even to those that just like mysteries.

Nancy Drew and her best friends, Bess and George, have only sun, boys, and surf on their minds, when they head to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for a week of fun. Who knew that they should be expecting attempted murder. Nancy, George, and Bess soon find out that their friend, Kim, who's already been vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale for a week, has been struck during a hit-and-run, on purpose. Now, as Kim lies in a hospital bed close to death, Nancy sets out to find the murderer, and she only has one clue to go by, the name "Rosita," which is what Kim said to Nancy just before she lost consciousness. Suddenly, Nancy finds herself thrown into a whirwind of murder and deceit, and realizes that there is now a new target. And that's Nancy herself.

Keene has succeeded in creating another enjoyable and mysterious tale, featuring everyone's favorite teenage sleuth, Nancy Drew. Teens will relish in the descriptions of sunny beaches, and handsome guys, but will also feel that they are a part of the mystery, by trying to solve it before Nancy does. An exciting thriller for all crime-solving teens.

Erika Sorocco

Nancy is at Ft. Launderdale for a week of sun, surf, and sand. Unfortunatly, her friend Kim is caught in a hit-and-run accident and it's up to Nancy to find out the truth. Nancy's only clue is "Rosita", the word Kim said just before she lost consiousness. This book is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!

Nancy is in Ft. Launderdale,when her friend Kim is hit by a car in broad daylight! When Nancy goes out to catch the would-be killer she is in extreme danger ,and has only one clue, "Rosita". I especially like the ending!

Tis book was really great. Of course I like all Nancy Drew's by Crolyn Keene. I enjoyed this book a lot so I am giving it a four and a half stars.I wish it was longer.

Nancy Drew
The Message in the Haunted Mansion
By: Carolyn Keene

This review was written by Marilyn (age 9) of Stockbridge Central School
Imagine this: A fire happened while you are gone; a window crashed almost on top of you and a lot of other accidents happened
in the same house as you are staying in. Well that's exactly what happened to Nancy Drew in an old mansion in San Francisco on California Street. Nancy and her friends Bess and George are trying to solve the mystery. I liked this book because it is a mystery. There are accidents they can't explain. I also liked this book because it is a ghost story. They think there is a ghost in the mansion! One other thing that happens is they think there is gold in the mansion. I loved this book! I recommend it to kids (and adults!) who like mysteries and suspense.

Nancy Drew is a thrilling suspenseful series. The author in this book gives you a full line of suspects to choose from with mysterious secret passages . Creepy appearances, strange visitors, lying suspects and much more. If you are a mystery lover like myself this book is for you!!!

Nancy Drew discovers another mystery when she, with friends Bess, George, and her housekeeper Hannah, help Rose Green and her niece Abby renovate an old Victorian mansion so they can turn it into a Bed and Breakfast. This book takes place in San Francisco, in current times. As the renovating begins, "accidents" that don't seem to be accidental, begin.

There's a legend about the house that it was once the hotel of the famous actress, Lizzie Applegate, who married the famous bandit El Diablo. She wrote a play called "The Bandit's Treasure". When Nancy, Bess, and George are fixing the house, they find some old documents proving that it was Lizzie's hotel, and she was the wife of El Diablo. A song in the play "The Bandit's Treasure" also suggests that maybe the bandit's real treasure is hidden inside the house.

Meanwhile, the renovations aren't going well. Someone is trying to stop them from succeeding, and wants them to abandon the project. The "ghost" of Lizzie Applegate keeps appearing. A window breaks with no reason. The chandelier chain is cut, and it falls and shatters. A fire is started inside the house. Nancy falls through the roof trying to fix something, and Nancy, Bess, and George receive a message saying "Leave the mansion at once!" A bathroom floods and ruins the downstairs wallpaper. Food from the kitchen keeps disappearing. A car tries to run over Nancy and George while out on a jog.

The house contains all kinds of surprises including two-way mirrors. Bess finds an old key hidden in a bedpost. Nancy, Bess, and George find various hidden rooms throughout the old hotel. One room contains a trunk that has to be opened with the key they found. It holds Lizzie's will, her diary, and the once-hotel house plans.

But who could be causing all this to happen? There are many suspects. Abby, Rose's niece, might be behind it all. Or what about Charlie, who is helping around the house, but also drives the same kind of car that tried to hit George and Nancy? Louis is helping also, but seems to be hiding something. Cassandra, Charlie's daughter, is being mysterious, and what about the blond teenager who keeps hanging around the mansion?

They find the blond teenager, named Tim, who's been taking food from the kitchen and living inside a secret room because he has no other home. Tim helps them look for more strange happenings.

The song in "The Bandit's Treasure" leads Nancy to the treasure under the floorboards where the fireplace used to stand. But Charlie and Louis try to stop them from taking the gold. They have been causing the "accidents" all along. With the help of Tim and the police, they land Charlie and Louis in jail and save the mansion.

I would recommend this book to any readers interested in mystery fiction. If you enjoy being a detective and solving mysteries, this is the book for you.

Nancy goes with her friends,Bess and George,and her house keeper Hannah to help renovate an old Victorian mansion waiting to become a bed and breakfast in Los Angeles, California.Nancy goes not suspecting to embark upon such a whirlwind of a case with someone,or something, behind accidents in the mansion that cannot be explained.If Nancy doesn't solve this mystery, who knows how dangerous the next act may be.The only way to find out, is to buy this book and find out for yourself.I give this one two thumbs way,way up for the suspense that keeps you asking for more.

this book is about nancy drew and her chums bess and george taking a trip to a beautiful seaside place.nancy has two mysteries to solve!her first one involves a lady that goes around selling perfume out of carts and cheating them off threir momey.bess is cheated when she opens the perfume and finds it fake.many other people find they have been cheated out of their money also.the other mystery involves nancy in a dangerous pursiut in a cave when the sound of a tolling bell runs through the cave warning poeple to leave before they drown.when nancy bess and george go to investigate they hear the bell and almost loose their lives!that dosent stop nancy drew though after threats and scares she goes on with the mystery.i would say this is in my top 10.the best part is chapter 19 when the extiment really gets suspenceful and nancy finds herself in dangerous trap!!find out how nancy drew gets out and solves both exiting mysteries!!!

What struck me about the Mystery of the Tolling Bell was its setting-- coastal New England! (Maine, maybe?) such a mystery would delight a Maine-iac like me! Also, it turned out that there WAS a tie-in between that mysterious cave and the
case that Mr. Drew sought to solve for Mrs. Chantrey. It was in this cave where the phonie cosmetic business was in operation. When, after boating accident, Nancy climbed to top of cliff to get her bearings, she felt weak and dizzy and went to sleep. In her dream, two elves carried her away and put them down. The elves were in fact part of the racket, Grumper (who did the chemical work) and his cousin Franz. So, this dream helped Nancy solve the case and bring the swindlers to justice (as she was able to identify two of the crooks). The ringleader, Harry Tyrox,
had a dozen ailases, like Monsieur Pappier, Mr. James et al. So did Mary Smith, the apparent front woman, who called herself Madame, Spanish Senora etc. Like all of the original Nancy Drews, this one is throwback to when many things we take for granted did not exist: there were no computers, transistor radios, dial phones, DVD's, audio CD's, or television (NOT EVEN MUNTZ TV's!) All in all, a very nice one.

This book actually deserves 3 1/2 stars. This is probably my favorite Nancy Drew book but they're not as good as the Annette books.
If you're going to read a Nancy Drew, read this one, but if you want a good mystery, try the Annette books which are better.

This is my favorite of all the Nancy Drew books. I love the story, plot, clues, and charecters. I think that if you only read one Nancy Drew book it should be this one.

This was the eighth book I read,and possibly the best! When Nancy goes on vacation she ends up in a mystery. Her father isn't there yet so she goes out looking for him. She also is sloving the case of the tolling bell which tolls right before water comes rushing out. Aperson dies and a ghost has been seen the end is for you to find out.

The photos don't do them justice and no two cards are alike. My daughter, a huge fan, loves to send these to her penpals.

Delightful.All 30 cards are different They actually made me think it might be fun reading one or two of these books again, 50 ++ years later.

I purchased these postcards for my daughter. They look so nice, I'm not sure if she will want use any of them. If you are a Nancy Drew fan, I would definitely recommend these. Maybe two sets, one to save and one to use. The price is great!

Thirty postcards for a very little price is almost too much to believe for any Nancy Drew fan! Beautifully done, they show the cover art of Nancy's books throughout the ages.

These cards are useable as postcards (of course), but they also make great bookmarks for yourself, or enclosed with a book you are giving to a friend. Matte and frame them, and you'll have a gorgeous display that will thrill any nostalgia buff.

What a bargain!

These were even better than I expected. My DD is 12, and really into reading these now, I am planning a scrapbooking project (probably a mini book) using these postcards.

I thought that the concept of this book was really great. I mean killing endangered species food and evil CIA. This book was very suspenseful I really liked it!!

I loved this book, it was so great.
The part when jo gets shot was so weird,i thought jo was going to get killed.I love it when nancy and her friends team up with the hardy boys.As everyone knows allready, NANCY AND FRANK sould get together.Nancy and frank love each other but for some reason she stays with ned, and frank stays with callie.But i really wonder if they get together some day.This book didn't have much stuff about him and nancy though.You also have to read a question of guilt, jo completely hates nancy but at the end he is so nice.You have to read process of elimination.

I thought this was a great book but needed some romance, maybe between NANCY & FRANK hint,hint. by the way can someone PLEASE tell me why there haven't been any new super mysteries, I'm going crazy!

This book rules! I thought all the other books were good. They're nothing compared to Ms. Keene's latest. Nancy is in California attending a conference, and you see her eating lunch with Bess and Bess' latest heartthrob, Anthony Green. Meanwhile, someone at the conference they attended is murdered, and Nancy doesn't think that someone is telling the truth. When Tony is about to tell them what all is going on, he gets shot and killed, and Bess gets put in the hospital, unconscious. Nancy feels it is all her fault, and takes the case as personal, and will let nothing stop her to find out who killed Tony and Carl Dubcheck, and why. Meanwhile, Frank and Joe are on vacation when they see a robbery take place. Since they are shot at, they go after the mystery. While in San Francisco, they meet up with Nancy and join forces with the police and major government agencies, even though the agencies don't want them involved. Together, Nancy, Frank, and Joe solve this totally awesome, unpredictable mystery.

This was a really great book. I it was rather a different kind of way to introduce Frank and Joe's part in the book. I mean-a man stealing bamboo is kinda funny. I also thought that the humor in the beginning(the part about Frank calling Joe immature and Joe kidding that Frank had hurt his feelings and then Frank buying lunch and joking about Joe not leaving anything for the lunch crowd)was good, and the other humor(like the man at the rental shop and the part about Frank not being allowed to play with matches.) I think that it gave the reader a good chance to solve the mystery(when the guy said that e hadn't touched the disk since whenever and that kind of disk wasn't invented yet) and it also was funny at the same time(Joe saying that the officer threw like a girl, the officer saying that Joe caught like a girl, and Nancy threataning that they might both get kicked by a girl.) I also thought that the part where Joe got shot was really exciting too. I wanted to keep reading and reading and reading. All in all, it was a really great book with a great plot and lots of action and adventure. I think that it should be turned into a movie.

This book had a terrific plot. The end was very unexpected. I thought it added a nice touch to both the Hardys and Nancy

Is this the one where she eats the salad at the restaurant with the flowers on it? Because if it is, this book rocks! Nancy *heart* Frank forever!

This books exitment rises and just makes you read more and more until you can't stop; then you reach the end of the book. I highly suggest this book to anyone looking for something better to do on a boring day. It changed my week!

I loved this one. I've read it at least five times, and the ending is still suprising. Who'd have known that a whole city could be built on lies? A great read for any mystery fan.

I have 16 Nancy Drew n. Hardy Boys books.I also have 23 Nancy Drew books. Out of those books, this was one of the best I've read! I give it five stars!

I have always been a BIG fan of Nancy Drew, but this one is my all-time favorite mystery. I first borrowed it from my cousin and by the time I returned it to her I had read it 4 times. I have been going crazy trying to find it that way I could buy it, but I never could find it till now on here Amazon.com. Thank you for offering it so I could by it...I still love this book and would recommend it to a lot of people.

The Mystery of Crocodile Island by Carolyn Keene is confusing and to factual at times. Why you may ask do I think it is too factual is because nobody cares less about the difference of Crocodiles and Alligators lets just get to the mystery already. I also say it is confusing at times because it involves to many people and so many names that you forget who is who. The main idea of this book is great, fun filled, and action packed that is why it still deserves five stars. I hope this review has helped you and that you would definitely buy this book with some of its ups and downs.

It was fun to read and very informative. Although silly at times, I find that coming back to read Nancy Drew after all these years is a fantastic getaway! I had about half the books read by 6th grade. Now in 11th grade, I decided to come back...I'm even thinking about becoming a detective myself!

I liked this book because this book was realistic. It was so beliveable that when they got kidnapped it made me mad.

I thought that this was an excellent book it was exciting and went at good pace and kept me on the edge of my seat and it was not hard to understand what was happening and it was easy to keep up

"Giddy Goodness", as wise Aunt Maude would say! This is an entertaining story as I will say.

This is the second work I've read by Dave Jeffery. Whether you read his novel "Finding Jericho", which delivers an educational and serious message or whether reading his more light-hearted work as with "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast", he tells his stories with a unique whimsical style. I have yet to get through his novels without laughing out loud at least ten times not including chuckles and smiles in between.

In "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast", Beatrice and her family move to a small and cliquish coastal town called Dorsal Finn due to her father's job loss. There, they will live with Beatrice's seventy-seven year old and very wise Aunt Maude to help with her Chocolate Emporium.

Beatrice dreads the move but finds unexpected acceptance there with her new found friends the "Newshounds." Together, with Beatrice being the leader, they embark with two hundred year old clues to uncover secrets surrounding the sunken "Charlotte Elizabeth." From there the reader is lead on a journey of clues; I guessed the answers to some of them ahead of time and other times I didn't but the pointing path kept me enthralled throughout the story.

Beatrice is exceptionally intelligent, inquisitive, and forthright. She is also respectful of her family which is a refreshing attribute for a twelve year old protagonist. She is also a skilled cook which leads her to the fearsome feast.

The author, Dave Jeffery, is a gifted story-teller who knows how to develop sensible and quirky characters that we can laugh at without making fun of. The town librarian and historian, Agnes, comes to mind. She has a botched hearing aid and Jeffrey takes her dilemma into a wave of laughter for the reader. You will understand the "wave" pun when you meet Agnes in the story.

I liked this story. It is not only for young adults but for readers of all ages.

I was impressed that there was not one profane word throughout the story. The characters all had sometime to add and did so without vulgar enhancement. The author's clever wit shines to the last page. You have another winner, Mr. Jeffrey. I give "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast" five solid stars.

Kathy Flanary Nelson

Like a culinary masterpiece, I found Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast to be extremely palatable indeed. The riddle-solving reminded me of the Three Investigators, while the exploration of secret passages was reminiscent of the Famous Five. And Aunt Maud's house, with its assortment of peculiar rooms, provided a pinch of Roald Dahl.

The story was exciting and certainly kept me gripped. I also greatly enjoyed the imaginary conversations that Beatrice had with Jamie Oliver and some of the other well-known British celebrity chefs. This is despite the fact that I'm not particularly into the cooking show genre or a big follower of any of those guys. The various plotlines (like the Fearsome Feast competition and the mystery of the Charlotte Elizabeth) were cleverly interweaved. Apart from the story, the characters are also engaging, especially Beatrice herself. The secondary characters are also quite well developed.

One of the few down sides for me was that the Epilogue was rather unsatisfactory and made the ending feel slightly untidy. On the whole, I prefer books to end with a sense of proper closure, although there should certainly be some scope for creating anticipation for the next book in a series. Speaking of which, I look forward to sampling Beatrice Beecham's Fete of Fate, which has just come out.

The other thing that bothered me was the somewhat high number of typos, which were a little bit distracting. But I'm sure a good copy-editor can fix that. ;-)

All in all, I found this book to be simply delicious and recommend that everyone put it on their reading menu! Pukka! :-)

This is a great book. Beatrice moves to the coast with her mom, dad, and little brother after her father loses his job. While there her mother's friend, Aunt Maud, gives her an old cookbook. From there the adventure begins. With her new found friends and her active imagination involving famous cooks, she sets off on a mystery that involves a past shipwreck, an interesting cooking contest, and many more twists and turns. This book is filled with colorful characters (you'll especially love Aunt Maud), a great adventure, and a surprise ending. I can't wait for more books from this author.

When 12-year-old Beatrice Beecham is given an old cookbook that completely comes apart when it falls off her bed, she finds hidden treasures that whisk her and her friends into a dangerous mystery. The oldest and richest family in Dorsal Finn has a murderous secret, and the most powerful people in town are helping them keep it. With the help of adventurous friends and a quick-thinking librarian, Beatrice develops a theory, but the only way to prove her suspicions is to enter the Fearsome Feast contest and win an overnight stay at the mansion.

Can she do it? Not without a bounty of close calls, perilous consequences, and finding the right time and place to use her cookbook treasures, clues from a desperate matriarch long dead.

Beatrice Beecham is delightful, scrappy, and the most exciting thing that has happened in Dorsal Finn for a long time. Dave Jeffery has created a tale that's intelligent and fun from start to finish, and full of surprises. This is one romping adventure!

What a wondrous beginning (after the dreadfully amateurish cover)! There's an exhilarating account of an ancient ship wreck, then we flash forward as an eccentric father who's lost his job, his wife, a younger brother absorbed in sci-fi technology and the brainy narrator who hears voices of--this is too brilliant for words--popular TV chefs make their way to the house of a strange aunt in the costal village of Dorsal Finn. This combination of traditional bedtime-story elements and contemporary references to cell phones, I-Pods, Star Wars and Harry Potter will make children (7 through early teens), their parents and even grandparents feel comfortably at home.

But there's adventure afoot: treasure with anagram clues, villains (including the notorious Chorley brothers), reenactment of an historic masque (shades of Edgar Allan Poe), a past murder uncovered and, last but not least, the "fearsome feast" in which entrants concoct hideous entrees (the one that can't be eaten by the notorious Vladimir Karlof wins). "A tale's not worth tellin' if it's not told right!" proclaims Aunt Maud. And this one abounds in treasures of its own. For example, the Aunt's little comments "...she's as reliable as a one handed alarm clock" and unobtrusive bits of psychological insight-- when Beatrice feels like a stranger in her new bedroom, Aunt Maud tells her about her own experience as a child in a strange bedroom when she was transported into the country during the bombing of London during World War II, "But I think the real reason I didn't want it to be mine. I was scared that if I accepted it then I would never see the world I knew ever again."

There are four very short surreal chapters from a second person point of view that may be confusing to young readers since we don't know who the "you" is and the cinematic ending seems unnecessarily complicated to me. But overall this is a great feast with course after course of satisfying dishes. It is the book as treasure hunt. Or like Aunt Maud would say, a story that "fills the coal scuttle."

The Clue of the Leaning Chimny is a book filled with adventure!!
It all starts with a man in a raincoat and stolen potery. Then a
friend asks Nancy to investigate his missing friends. Can Nancy solve a clue,and wrap up both cases? Read The Clue of the Leaning Chimny and find out!!!!!

When I first read this book I couldn't put it down.It was sointeresting and excitable.All the time I couldn't wait to read whatwould happen next.I would encourage anyone who is interested in mysteries and detective novels to read this book, as this is one of the best book I have ever read.

in this exiting mystery nancy tries to locate a missing vase wich is in dick miltons pottery shop.this vase is very rare and the only way dick thinks he can pay mr.soong,the owner of the vase,back is to locate a clay pit near a leaning chimney.while nancy is searching for the leaning chimney she finds a bording house that has one and when nancy goes in one of the rooms of the bording house to investinate she sees a man enter a secret panel in a closet nancy goes in the secret panel and finds it leadsto the next doors house attic.the man nancy saw eneter the attic escaped but when exploring the attic she finds a lot of rare pottrty vases in the attic!!!!!latter on nancy and bess and george go in the woods to investigate to see if they can find the right leaning chimney which they belive it is in the woods because a professor told them something about remenbering a leaning chimney and the girls soon find out that there is a leaning chimney in that area!the way nancy solves the mystery of the missing vases and the fake imitations of vases is exiting.expesially when nancy and mr.soong go to the leaning chimney to find out if mr.soongs friends which went missing five years before are being held prisinor there.

This book is really really good. Instead of a 5 star rating it deserves a 10 star rating. I could not put this book down. It was so bad that my reading teacher had to yell at me to pay attention and stop reading.I read this book in one day because I could not put it down. It was like my eyes were glued to the pages. My friend was doing a book report and she needed a book, she never ever reads so i was like just take this one and she finished it in one day also! The whole collection of Nancy Drew's book are like this, they are all really good,at least a 4.5 rating for all of them.I have only 30 books of the collection and I am still going, I am trying to finish the whole series, Carolyn Keene won't let you down, when it comes to a good book.Ths book is really, really good and i have nothing bad to say about it! Now since my friend read "The Clue of the leaning Chimney," she has asked her mom to get the rest of the collection. This book has action,laughs,thrillers, and much much more. Anyone who reads this review should believe me and get this 5 star rating book!

This review concerns the original 1949 edition as well as the edited 1967 edition which has a plot similar to the original. Bess' cousin Dick asks for Nancy's help when a valuable, old, oriental vase that was on display is stolen from his pottery shop. He also tells Nancy about a pit of china clay that is supposed to be located somewhere around River Heights near a leaning chimney. The clay is used in making fine pottery and could make Dick wealthy if he could find it. Finally, the owner of the stolen vase, Mr. Soong, seeks Nancy's help in finding his missing friend and the man's daughter, who came to America a few years previous, but disappeared before they arrived at Mr. Soong's. This is certainly one of the more interesting books of the Nancy Drew series. The book quickly grabbed my attention and managed to hold it until the final page, which I can really only say happened with about 1/3 of the books in the series. There is quite a bit of action in the book and the writing is very good, at least in the original edition; unfortunately, in most of the revised editions the writing has been dumbed down. I enjoyed this book from beginning to end and I think that most Nancy Drew fans would place this one on their Best Of the Series lists.

Outstanding service. Book was in better than expected condition.

This is not a story, it's an informational book about Nancy Drew. Everythin in it is factual and it even shares a few mysteries of the life of Nancy Drew. I recomend this book to any mystery fan, ND fan, or the curious reader.

...and other fascinating background trivia for the queen-of-teen-sleuth buffs! I'm not a true Nancy Drew fan, I'm a bookseller with a mercenary interest in the vintage teenage sleuth, but this book almost made me a believer! The author approaches her subject matter with the infectious enthusiasm of the true fan, and delves into carefully guarded mysteries of secret ghostwriter identities, Riverview's true location, and other gems of trivia too numerous to cite, with a determination and verve Nancy herself would be proud of! Fun to read, captivating, and informative to the collector and bookseller alike! (and by the way, the writing is adult-level, not 4-8 yrs., as the description implies!)

What a fun read! I loved seeing all the old pictures, and was amazed by the "behind the scenes" intrigue of the Nancy Drew publishing syndicate. Plunkett-Powell really tracked down the many Carolyn Keenes, in true "sleuth style." Anyone who ever stayed up late reading their Nancy Drews with a flashlight under the covers will absolutely love this book.

This was the best and most well-researched book I've ever read about Nancy Drew. Not only does Ms. Plunkett-Powell "introduce" us to the REAL Carolyn Keene -- Mildred Wirt Benson -- but she gives us a history of how the idea for Nancy Drew was born and some of the politics involved in it for Wirt when Stratmeyer died and his daughter, Harriet, took over everything and tried to control too much of the writing. We learn which NDs weren't written by Wirt, and how much of the writing was changed as well as the covers.

She tells collectors how to know the worth of their stash. She goes through each of the characters and their start with the series. She even talks about the TV show and MOVIES in the 1930s that were made -- more for the fun of it than to truly showcase the books. Info about Russell Tandy, the illustrator of the early books and the first to design covers, also is described.

She hasn't forgotten anything. It's truly a work of genius for the Nancy Drew collector, a "must have" for all of us!