"We always solve them, too."

Meg #6
Mystery in Williamsburg

We take a break from Nancy this week with a lesser-known mystery-solver who was nonetheless a huge part of my childhood. The 'Meg' mysteries were aimed at younger children, so the stories have far fewer cliff-hangers (and larger print).

Meg has a number of similarities to Nancy Drew - she's motherless, and largely raised by her housekeeper, she loves solving mysteries (of course) and she never makes any mistakes, leaving that to her best friend, Kerry, to do.

The case:
It's spring, and Meg is painting a picture of some dandelions for her father, who is away on business. Apparently she's amazingly talented at art. I suspect this will be relevant later in the book. You can tell she's talented because Mrs Wilson, the housekeeper, tells her her painting is "real pretty". She also brings Meg some news: her uncle is here to see her!

Uncle Hal has a Very Important job at the museum, although Meg's not allowed to ask questions about it. I'm thinking he's actually a government spy. He's also young and handsome. I'm thinking sexy government spy. Anyway, Uncle Hal has arrived to invite Meg and Kerry to Williamsburg. A friend of Meg's (dead) mother is holding a toy exhibition, and she's asked Meg and Kerry to help, as tour guides.

When the three of the get to Williamsburg, Meg's (dead) mother's friend isn't home, and although she leaves her front door open, it sticks in the rain. No matter - her house has a secret entrance! There's a door next to the chimney which leads into the old wood shed, and then into the house. That is actually pretty cool.

Meg's (dead) mother's friend, Lucy, arrives home. Uncle Hal tells her something smells good, and Lucy flirtatiously suggests that it's her, although it turns out he's actually talking about dinner. Still, Uncle Hal is clearly a UILF. Lucy tells the girls about the mysterious Miss Mariah, who is donating some of the toys to the exhibition. She carries an old doll around with her all the time, and there's a locked room in her mansion (aka the River House) which she visits every day between 2 and 3pm. No one says anything about Bluebeard, but I bet they're all thinking it.


Before visiting Miss Mariah, Meg and Kerry get dressed up in Colonial style clothes. I remember doing that at school when I was a kid, and it being totally fun. Kerry is a tomboy, so she has to wear stockings and breeches, which sounds less fun. They go to show off their outfits to Uncle Hal, and Meg finds a photo that he's dropped, of a man who is smiling - except the smile doesn't reach his eyes. Ladies and gentlemen, we have found our villain, and we don't even know what the mystery is yet.

Miss Mariah introduces Meg and Kerry to Paris, the doll she carries around with her. She was named Paris because... she was made in Paris. This seems like the doll-equivalent of naming your child after wherever it was conceived. Number 17 Bus Shelter knows what I'm talking about. Paris was one of the first talking dolls ever made, but one day... there was a tragedy. And after that Paris never spoke again.

Miss Mariah's parents died when she was 6, and her Grandfather took her in. He filled her playroom with toys, all of which she was allowed to play with - except for two little peg dolls, named Mercy and Charity. Apparently, they were incredibly valuable, but Miss Mariah could never work out why. After all, they were made from clothespins. But one day, her visiting cousins completely wrecked the playroom, breaking the doll's house that was an exact replica of the River House (right down to a secret room), injuring Paris, and losing the two peg dolls. The resulting arguements and accusations broke the family apart.

Apparently Miss Mariah's grandfather found the two dolls, and hid them to keep them safe. But she was ill when he told her where, and all she can remember of his instructions is to "turn the house upside down, and you'll find them". She has turned the whole house upside down, searching everywhere, but she's never found them.

Strangely, a lot of people have suddenly started visiting her, and asking her about her toy collection. She's sure that someone's out to steal her toys. Perhaps she's been visited by Angelica Pickles. But she's sure they'll be safe at the exhibition while she's out of town, and Meg and Kerry promise to look after Paris as if she was there own child. Er, doll. Then there's a knock at the door. A young man, Stephen, comes to the door and asks where he can find the River House and Miss Mariah, Miss Mariah is incredibly suspicious, and turns him away before he can say why he's there.

Lucy takes the girls home with the toys Miss Mariah has donated to the exhibition, and it starts pouring with rain. They see Stephen waiting for the bus and offer him a lift, and as they talk he starts revealing that he knows things about Paris and Miss Mariah that she had said no one else knew. As thanks he offers to help carry the toys into Lucy's house. And they let him, because that is the ideal thing to do when you think someone is trying to steal your shit - let them carry it for you. The front door is still stuck, so they have to go in through the chimney door again. Stephen, who is carrying the doll's house, slips in the dark, but the doll's house seems to be unharmed. The only thing that has changed is that the roof, which was slightly crooked before, is now straight. Meg notices this with her "artist's eye", by the way. Stephen apologises, saying he tripped over his own large feet.

The next day, Lucy, Meg and Kerry go out for a walk, and Meg decides she wants to do some sketching. Up until now, Meg has been the one looking after Paris, but she gives the doll to Kerry to hold so she can work. Lucy sends Kerry to buy some fresh cookies, and in the bakery the baker accidentally bumps into Kerry with a hot baking tray, burning her hands. She puts Paris down on the counter while she gets her hands bandaged up - and when she comes back, Paris is gone! Meg, of course, wouldn't have put Paris down for a second, 3rd degree burns or no.

Lucy thinks someone must have just picked up Paris thinking she was lost, but Meg wonders if she was stolen. She's further convinced when they visit the toy exhibition and she finds out that a lot of old toys are worth a lot of money - especially early models, like Paris. Lucy finally considers going to the police, but before she can ring them Meg hears someone coming up the steps towards the exhibition, and leaving again quickly. When Meg and Kerry open the door, they find Paris leaning against the doorframe. And I read enough horror stories as a young kid to be pretty convinced that Paris is alive and out to kill everyone.



Back at the exhibition, Meg and Kerry find footsteps muddy footsteps going up the stairs. Footprints made by large feet. Which is just the kind of feet that Stephen has! Even more suspiciously, after the exhibition opens, he comes to visit and makes a joke about Paris "getting back in time". The girls are sure he stole Paris, but Lucy points out that that isn't the hard evidence that they need. She might not have used those exact words.

Now, Meg's age is never actually given in the book, but I have to assume she's quite young - for one thing, she wears her hairs in pigtails, which is usually a sign of "young girl", and for another, Lucy worries about leaving the girls alone at night. So let's say she's thirteen, maybe fourteen at most (maybe younger). Stephen, on the other hand, is described as a "young man". So when Lucy goes out for the evening, and Stephen rings Meg and asks her if he can come over with "someone who wants to see you and Kerry", it is pretty damned skeevy. Particularly since Stephen doesn't say anything about checking with her parent or guardian about whether it's OK. Luckily, Meg tells him no. But it totally reads like a child abduction just waiting to happen.

Stephen's not the only suspicious person around, though. Meg notices a guy hanging around the toy exhibition with long hair, a bushy moustache, and a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Personally, I suspect anyone who thinks a moustache is a good idea. He introduces himself as Mr Adam and asks a number of interested questions. Kerry answers quite happily, but Meg isn't sure about him. She tells him he'll have to leave, as the girls are about to go on their lunchbreak. When they get back from lunch, they find that someone has emptied all the furniture out of the dollhouse. (DUN DUN DUNNN!) Meg and Kerry try to put things straight again, and in the house Meg finds a cufflink shaped like an 'S'. S... for skeevy Stephen?

Lucy takes a delivery of an old diary and a bunch of other papers, but has to go out for the evening again. Meg looks through, and finds something shocking - an article on The Mystery of the Missing Washington Dolls. Turns out George Washington gave his sister two little peg dolls, named Mercy and Charity. Meg realises that other people have read the article, realised that Miss Mariah was (is?) in possession of Mercy and Charity and have started sniffing around for information.

Meg realises that the dolls must be hidden in the doll's house. She and Kerry remember the secret room and decide to open it and see if the dolls are inside. At first they can't get it open, but then Meg remembers Miss Mariah's message - "turn the house upside down". They do, and the secret room opens - but there's nothing inside but a scrap of material. The dolls are gone.

At the end of the day the girls are getting ready to leave when they spot Stephen and another man talking to Mr Adam. Panicked, Meg almost drops Paris, and hears a ripping noise. She realises what caused Paris to stop talking, and decides she needs to get to Lucy as quickly as possible. Lucy is working at the old jail, solely, I assume, so that Meg and Kerry can get locked in there after closing.

Luckily they're rescued... unluckily, it's by Stephen and the other man, who turns out to be his father. They say that Lucy asked them to pick the girls up, but Meg and Kerry are somewhat skeptical! Before they get to Stephen's car, they make a run for it, taking a shortcut which leads away from the road and towards Lucy's house. Just as they arrive, someone yells at them to stop running, because he wants the doll. It's Mr Adam, of the unsmiling eyes. They duck in through the chimney door, and Meg tells Kerry her discovery. One of the Washington dolls has been inside Paris, all this time!

But there's more - on the woodshed floor they find another doll. It had been inside the doll's house, but on that very first day when Stephen dropped the house it had popped free.

So that's one mystery solved! But what about the bad guys? Well, Uncle Hal and Lucy bring the girls out of the woodshed and Meg and Kerry finally get a proper introduction to Stephen and his father. Turns out, his father is one of Miss Mariah's cousins, one of the brats that hid the Washington dolls in the first place! He shoved one of them into the doll's house, and the other down the couch; it was Miss Mariah's grandfather who hid on in Paris. None of this makes Stephen's behaviour any less creepy, but whatever.

It was Stephen who found and returned Paris - he hadn't stolen her, but had thought she had been left behind. And the cuff-link isn't his, either. Oh, and they didn't actually know Mr Adam - they'd just met him when the girls saw them talking together. Uncle Hal becomes interested in Mr Adam, though. He produces the photo that Meg saw earlier and asks the girls if he's the one. Kerry says no, but Meg the artist draws on long hair and a moustache and bingo! It is Mr Adam after all! Turns out his real name is Scott, and he's one of the cleverest art thieves in the world. The cufflink is his, too, which places him at the scene of the crime. Uncle Hal is totally a spy. Scott is apprehended, Miss Mariah reunites with her family, and Paris gets her groove back. Case closed.

Case notes:

• Miss Mariah's name irritates me. Not because of the alliteration, which is awesome (naturally), but because every time I read it I wonder if it's ma-REE-a or ma-RAY-a.
• I have never understood the "eyes not smiling" trope so often used in kids' books. Don't people's eyes just naturally crinkle when they smile? Or does this mean something else?!
• Mercy and Charity are such moralistic names for children's toys. But at least neither of them were named "Chastity".
• Miss Mariah really comes across as having never got over the loss and destruction of her toys. To be fair, her grandfather died not long after, but even then, she's still tearing up while she talks about him. Then again, it would appear that she doesn't have anything in her life except her memories of her childhood. It's just sort of sad and awful.
• There's actually some really decent descriptions of Williamsburg. The author is not without talent.
• Meg and Kerry have to give speeches at the exhibition. Meg is a natural, of course, and Kerry keeps screwing up.
• And on the first day, although they're both nervous, Meg gets over her nerves super-quick. Then, once Kerry gets into it, Meg just sits around and sketches while Kerry does the tour/demonstration/speaking.
• Meg figures out there's a doll in Paris and just... doesn't tell Kerry for a while. Which is a total dick move, but just exactly what I'm starting to expect from her.

The cover: Is not really that mockable. Although I do wonder why Meg is trying to smother a baby with a pink blanket.

Wednesday Moment - From the mouths of babes

I spent last weekend at the Writers and Readers Festival where I was able to listen to a wide range of authors discuss a wide range of books. One of the best talks I went to was given by authors Rachel King and Paula Morris, at which Paula Morris talked about (among other things) her latest young adult novel, Ruined, a sort of ghost-story-slash-murder-mystery set in New Orleans.

One of her favourite letters, she said, that she had a received from a reader was from a twelve-year-old boy, who asked her if she could please write a sequel to Ruined set in New York, "But don't call it Ruined 2."

It's nice to know that children still have better taste in titles than movie producers, and Ruined is now on my to-be-read pile.

"George knew that Nancy and mystery were never far apart."

Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #5
The Secret of Shadow Ranch

The Case:
Nancy touches down in Arizona, where she's going to be spending some time on Shadow Ranch, owned by Bess and George's Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet. George and Bess meet Nancy with the news that there's a mystery at the ranch, and Uncle Ed might not let them stay for long unless Nancy can solve it. Protip to Uncle Ed: if you do not want a mystery at your ranch, don't call it Shadow Ranch. Call it "Happy Hippos" or something. No self-respecting detective would take on a case called "The Secret of Happy Hippos Ranch".

Turns out that Uncle Ed only purchased the ranch recently and has been trying to do it up, but so many things have been going wrong that he thinks it must be sabotage. Then, one night, the ghostly apparition of a horse appeared.

Supposedly it's the horse of the outlaw, Dirk Valentine, who was shot by the then-sheriff after he started romancing the sheriff's daughter. Dirk swore that his horse would haunt Shadow Ranch for evermore. He sounds kind of lazy, to be honest. Why not just haunt it himself? I call animal abuse.

While the cousins are explaining this, some old guy steals Nancy's knitting bag. She finds it again almost straight away, and wonders if he'd been snooping for some reason. Then the girls find him dropping a note into their car. The note reads Keep away from Shadow Ranch. Subtle. Nancy decides that clearly someone is trying to chase the ranch's new owners off the property, and thinks it was probably an inside job.

The girls give chase, but lose the note-dropping, wool-stealing weirdo, and start the long drive to the ranch instead. Bess suddenly remembers that there's another mystery they haven't told Nancy about. Their cousin Alice's father went missing six months ago, after a bank robbery. The media has hinted that he may have been involved in the robbery, but Alice refuses to believe it. Nancy agrees to help. Now, what is the likelihood that these two, completely separate, mysteries somehow end up being related? Pretty unlikely, right? I'm sorry I even brought it up.

Naturally, some crazy shit goes down during the drive. The girls are hit by a sandstorm - Nancy's excellent driving keeps them on the road - and have to make a quick stop to make sure the car's OK (and reapply their lipstick - nothing erodes make-up like a desert storm!). Bad news: the car's radiator is stuffed, and the car keeps overheating. Worse news: even though the girls thought they had brought two flasks of water, they've already drunk one, and the other one is myseriously empty! Good news: at least their make-up is flawless. Thank God for ColourStay.

The girls contemplate death from broken car and/or dehydration for a while, but they're saved by one of the workers from the ranch, Dave Gregory. (He's tall and handsome, of course.) Dave tells them off for not bringing water, and also calls them "dudes" which I guess is cowboy talk. George protests that one of the other cowboys, Shorty Steele, had said he'd fill their flasks, and Dave's eyes narrow ominously.

At the ranch, Nancy is almost attacked by a farm dog whose name is, um, Apache Chief. Since I recently read a book where not one, but two cats were called 'N-word' this doesn't appal me as much as it might otherwise. Nancy stands her ground and the dog calms down and decides to become her best friend. I add "animal whisperer" to my rapidly growing list of Nancy's skills. Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet warmly welcome Nancy to the ranch, especially now she's proven she's not bad for a "tenderfoot". At dinner, Shorty denies agreeing to fill the girls' flasks, and Nancy is pretty sure he's full of shit, although her phrasing is slightly different.

Nancy decides to look at the warning note she got earlier, and Bess digs through Nancy's knitting bag to retrieve it. Surprise! There's a second warning note tied around a rattlesnake's rattle. It's even conveniently labelled, Second warning. You know, just in case Nancy had lost count, or had thought that she'd absent-mindedly put part of a dead snake in her own knitting bag. Nancy doesn't seem particularly bothered. Even though she lies awake that night, it's because she's thinking about Dave Gregory, not about the people who are threatening to kill her. Well, he is tall and handsome, so I can't really blame her for that.

Nancy and the cook both see an intruder, and the cook is positive that he's entered the kitchen. But there's no way out of the kitchen - except through a convenient trapdoor which apparently doesn't lead to anywhere beyond the basement. Uncle Ed, Nancy and Dave go down to the basement to find him, but there's no one there. Dave tells Nancy that he wasn't in the bunkhouse when the intruder arrived because he was doing "extra sleuthing", which Nancy thinks is pretty suspicious.

The next morning, the water isn't running - someone's dicked over the pump. The clay around the pump is red - and the same clay appears on both Dave and Shorty's boots. Dave offers to go into town to collect parts to repair the pump, and says he'll give Nancy a lift as well. When Nancy brings George along he gets all grumpy and Nancy can't work out why. Apparently Nancy is good at everything except noticing when cowboys have a crush on her.

In town, Nancy pays a visit to the sheriff, and I almost fall asleep because for a book jam-packed with action this scene is ridiculously dull. Nancy, sensing my mood, stops a burglary inside a gift shop. Some guy wearing a black kerchief over his face is busy scooping jewellery into a bag as Nancy walks past. Nancy stops him, of course, and the shop's owner is overjoyed even though Nancy doesn't manage to catch the thief. The shop's owner is Mary Deer, and she's Indian. You can tell she's Indian, because she's described as Indian right there on the page. Also on the next page, and the page after that. On every page, basically.

Mary Deer: she's an Indian!

Mary Deer wants to give Nancy something to thank her, and produces an old-fashioned watch on a fleur-de-lis pin which the outlaw Dirk Valentine gave to his sweetheart, Frances Humber. Mary points out Valentine's symbol - a heart - and tells Nancy that apparently he left a treasure for Frances that she never received. Rumour is that Valentine's fortune is buried somewhere on Shadow Ranch. Could that have anything to do with the shit going down on the ranch? Probably! Nancy plays with the watch for a while, and somehow manages to open up a secret compartment with a message inside. The message says, green bottle in-. Green bottle in where? Nancy doesn't know, but despite the fact that she has the whole world to search through, she doesn't seem particularly worried.

That night, the phantom horse returns. Lead by Shorty, everyone gives chase, and while they're gone someone turns over Nancy's room, searching for the watch. Nancy is wearing the watch, so she's not too upset. She tries to follow the horse's tracks (prints?) but Shorty produces a short-cut which somehow loses the trail. I would not trust Shorty as far as I could throw him, and I throw like a girl. Also, no one seems to be suspicious of him, and when Nancy ever brings up the fact that this has to be an inside job Uncle Ed gets shirty. Jeez, no wonder he needs an eighteen-year-old to solve this thing for him.

Alice sees a picture that Nancy bought from Mary Deer's shop, and decides that her father must have drawn it. Everyone else thinks she's still in denial about him being dead, and also a crook. Still, Nancy gets the name of the artist from Mary and learns that he lives in a cabin up in the mountain, and later she organises a horse ride for the four girls to go and meet him. There's nobody at the cabin, but there is a half-finished picture - another by Alice's father. Then, suddenly - a flash flood! Nancy, George, and Alice's horses are happy to swim across the now-swollen river, but Bess's horse isn't trained for it. Nancy has to go back for her and her horse. Which... doesn't make any sense to me. Bess's horse is happy to swim, but only if its lead? Admittedly, I know jack-all about horses. Plus, Dave is so impressed by Nancy's heroism that he actually apologises to her for being such a jerk. Nancy finds this somewhat suspicious. Then he locks her in stable, which she finds even more suspicious.

Nancy pries open a window with a crowbar, and as she climbs out she notices a light on in the spring-house, where the ranch gets its water from. She rushes over, and even though she doesn't see anyone leave the spring-house is empty by the time she gets there. Nancy realises there must be a secret passage from the spring house to the cellar. Along with Bess and George, she finds a false floor under one of the vats in the spring-house, and goes down through it to the cellar, where she discovers... Dave Gregory!

Dave freely admits that he's been looking for treasure, but denies being the phantom horse or sabotages the farm. Turns out he's a descendant of Frances Humber. His family has Valentine's will, and the missing part of Nancy's clue - the word cellar - and as they're hard up financially he thought it was about time they actually looked for it. Dave apologises for being such a dick, and says that he's caught someone else snooping from time to time - Shorty.

Dave tells them more of Frances and Valentine's story. They were meant to meet at the spring-house one last time, but the Sheriff lay in wait for him and shot the outlaw dead. When he came to tell Frances the news, she was lighting a lamp. Nancy wonders why she was lighting a lamp, when surely she must have heard the shots, and wonders if she'd found the green bottle and was hiding it. The girls ask Aunt Bet if there are any lamps left from the Humber ranch, and sure enough, there's one with a green bottle inside.

It took Nancy some time to work out which lamp contained the green glass bottle.

There's a letter from Valentine to Frances inside the bottle. Nancy starts to read it, but just then the power goes out. It's been cut, as have the phonelines. Nancy suspects that the ranch's enemies are after the new palamino horses. George and Bess hurry off to find Dave, and Nancy runs into ranch-hand Tex. Together they discover the Bud, who was meant to be guarding the horses, has gone missing. Then the phantom horse appears, and Nancy is determined to catch it. She chases it on horseback, but it runs right through the palaminos, and her own horse starts and throws her. Nancy blacks out.

Nancy comes-to to the news that the fences keeping in the palaminos have been cut. The men ride off to find the stray horses, and Nancy returns to the house to read the rest of Valentino's letter. It says that the treasure is hidden in the ranch's "oldest dwelling". Aunt Bet tells her that that's the house that they're in, but the girls are unable to find anything by searching.

Nancy and Alice decide to take another ride up to the mountsin cabin to find Alice's father. Shorty offers to saddle up their horses for them, and when Nancy gets on hers it starts bucking wildly. Tex quickly finds a nettle under the blanket, but Shorty denies all knowledge. As no one has any proof, they let him go, and Nancy and Alice ride to the cabin. It's opened by the man who gave Nancy her two warning notes. He claims to be the artist, but he refers to the pastel drawing as "paintings", and Nancy knows he's full of crap. It also confirms that whoever has Alice's father is also messed up in the ranch sabotage.

Nancy and Alice return to the ranch to get ready for the rodeo, barbeque and square dance that is planned for that evening. Dave is taking Nancy, and Bud and Tex are conveniently taking George and Bess. I forget which is taking which but they're pretty much interchangeable anyway. While waiting for the rodeo to start, Nancy is told there's a phonecall for her. As she excuses herself to take it, she's grabbed by two men - Mr Bursey, the fake artist, and Mr Diamond, the man who may have burgled Mary's store.

Luckily, on the very next page Bess and George demand the men let her go, and Nancy is free - but the men escape. Nancy worries that they'll never get caught, and gets a brainwave. After the dance, while the master of ceremonies is speaking, Nancy gets up on the stage and announces that the men of Shadow Ranch are going to go digging for Valentine's treasure the next morning. Shorty tries to find out what she meant, but Nancy won't tell.

The men set out the next morning on horseback, with an extra horse for the treasure. Nancy and the girls also set out, heading in the opposite direction. Nancy is sure she knows where the treasure really is - in a set of cliff houses, up Shadow Mountain. They're not part of the ranch - but they were when Valenting wrote his note. First, they head for the artist's cabin. It's empty once again, but Nancy is sure there must be a secret passage somewhere. There is, and it leads straight up to the rundown cliff houses. There they find Alice's father, bound on the floor. And they also find Valentine's secret hideout - and his treasure!

Nancy lights a fire to signal to the men that they've found it, but Mr Diamond appears, telling her that even though the gang started off following the ranch workers, they saw the sherriff following and realised it was a trap. They saw Nancy leave the house, and trapped Bess and George - and the treasure - inside. Nancy uses every delaying tactic she knows, then starts to play the gang members off against each other. She gets confessions from Bursey and Shorty, and Diamond angrily threatens to kill everyone. But before he can, Dave and the others arrive, having seen Nancy's signal fire go out.

Conclusion: Alice's father interrupted the gang when they were robbing his bank, so they took him with them so he wouldn't identify him. Why not just kill him straight away? Mr Diamond found out about Valentine's treasure while talking to Mary Deer, and they decided to stick around to try and find it. Oh, and the phantom horse trick was done by painting a horse with phospheresent paint, and then shining a light on it, adding crulety to animals to the gang's many crimes. Their biggest crime? Stupidity. In the time it took them to not find any of the clues to the treasure, and not find the treasure itself, they could easily have robbed a couple more banks and be off somewhere nice, living the high life. Instead, they're in jail, Dave gets the treasure, and there's a horse somewhere dying very slowly of radiation poisoning. (This might not be true. I don't actually know anything about science.)

Case notes:

• This time, Nancy's hair isn't reddish-blonde, but titian. My good friend wikipedia informs me that this is more of a brownish-orange.
• ...and Bess is only "slightly plump"...
• ...and, just in case you were worried, George may be tomboyish, but she's attractive too.
• Then again, the sandwich shop at the airport is also described as attractive. I'm thinking our author just needed a decent thesaurus.
• The book's setting is really just an excuse to get the characters to unronically use the word "pardner". And it gets old real fast.
• Mary Deer "was wearing a vivid red beaded dress and had a glossy braid over each shoulder". Well, of course. How else would people know she was Native American?
• Valentine is so romanticised. I find it hard to believe that any real outlaw would go around wooing sherriff's daughters and drawing hearts on his horse. Real outlaws would be raping and pillaging.
• So, now Nancy's a good knitter, an excellent driver, a baker of delicious chocolate cakes and a natural on horseback. Bess, on the other hand, fails even to throw a lassoo.
• On the other hand, Bess does set up Alice with Tex's brother, Jack. George, on the other hand, contributes approximately nothing to the entire story.
• The name of the nearest town is Tumbleweed. Tumbleweed.
• Poor Ned only gets a one line mention in this book, in which Nancy says that he's in Europe and won't be back until after she returns to River Heights. This seems a little harsh, given that she's busy getting her cowgirl on with Dave, but in the original run of the series he didn't make his first appearance until book #7. Obviously the line was added in later, to explain his absence from the plot.
• On one of their trips into town, the girls all buy "colorful squaw dresses". They then go to a Spanish restaurant and eat tacos, that well-known Spanish dish.
• In case you're wondering just exactly what one does at a square dance, here's one I prepared earlier:

The Cover:
This book should have been titled "The Mystery of Why Nancy Thought That Shirt Was a Good Idea". She's rocking that perm, though, and I appreciate a girl who can stay on a bucking horse without blinking an eyelid. Still, this is hardly the most exciting cov oh shit it's a ghost horse.

Friday Moment: Recipe for insta-crush on China Mieville

If you have a world in which Orcs are evil, and you depict them as evil, I don't know how that maps onto the question of "political correctness." However, the point is not that you're misrepresenting Orcs (if you invented this world, that's how Orcs are), but that you have replicated the logic of racism, which is that large groups of people are "defined" by an abstract supposedly essential element called "race," whatever else you were doing or intended. And that's not an innocent thing to do. Maybe you have a race of female vampires who destroy men's strength. They really do operate like that in your world. But I think you're kidding yourself if you think that that idea just appeared ex nihilo in your head and has nothing to do with the incredibly strong, and incredibly patriarchal, anxiety about the destructive power of women's sexuality in our very real world.

Source.

I've never read any of his work before, but clearly now I need to.

"You have enough adventures in one day, Nancy, to last most people a week."

The Double Jinx Mystery
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #50

As I'm sure your own supreme detecting skills have already noticed, the cover claims this is book 38. When the series was reprinted in paperback, they were all done out of order - but I've decided to stick with the original numbering. So, it's book 50. Just roll with it.

The Case:
Our story begins with Nancy talking over her latest mystery with her friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne. For future reference, George has a "boyish figure" which I guess means she's flat-chested and short dark hair, while Bess is "plump, pretty, and blonde" which is short-hand for "the one the guys want: may have boobs". Nancy's father, lawyer Carson Drew, has been asked to un-jinx someone. He's already had several threatening phonecalls from someone who promises to curse him, which worries Bess although George thinks it's ridiculous. Being the pretty one also means you're superstitious, because only girly ladies are that silly!

Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and it seems that someone has left a (dead, stuffed) bird on the doorstep. In an incredibly lucky coincidence, Nancy's housekeeper, Hannah, knows all about birds, because studying them is her hobby. This will probably never be mentioned again. Turns out the bird is a wryneck, used in ancient times to put a curse on people! Nancy immediately leaps to the totally rational conclusion that there's a bomb in the house! There isn't! This is only the first chapter and I've already almost used up my exclamation quota!

A bomb, possibly.

Back to the mystery: Carson's client is Mr Thurston, who owns a bird sanctuary/aviary, but the High Rise Construction Company want to get it condemned so that they can develop their land. At this point, I laugh like a loon over the world's most unimaginatively named development company. Nancy and pals head over to the Thurstons' aviary and immediately stumble across some dude trying to cut open one of the bird cages. Nancy and George chase him, but lose him.

Bess is caught by Thurston's assistant, Rausch, by the open cage, and the girls are accused of being the perpetrators. George gets angry, but Nancy manages to save the situation. I know if a 18-year-old girl told me to "just calm down" I'd be perfectly willing to listen to what she said, and then believe her crazy tales about some mysterious guy with wire cutters. Nevertheless, Rausch does believe her, and introduces her to Mr Thurston, who then shows Nancy and pals around the aviary. Nancy is surprised to see a wryneck (that is neither dead nor stuffed) named Petra there, and wonders if its owner, a Eurasian girl named Kamenka Nolastnamesky, has anything to do with the mystery.

The girls meet Mrs Thurston, who is an invalid and incredibly superstitious, and Kamenka, who is quick to take offence when Bess inelegantly asks what she knows about wrynecks and jinxes. Nancy, of course, would never have been so gauche.

With her father's help Nancy determines that the dead wryneck came from Harper University. Where Kamenka is studying. And only Kamenka has recently borrowed the dead wryneck! Um, why, if she has her own? That doesn't make any kind of sense. Nancy then sees Kamenka talking to the same guy who was trying to break into the bird cages, but ol' Kammy claims she was just asking him what he was doing on the property. Despite this incredibly suspicious behaviour, Nancy doesn't think that Kammy could be involved, because she's such a lovely person. Nancy, sometimes seemingly nice people are employed by development companies to place curses on people, OK? And sometimes seemingly nice people are cannibalistic killers.

The local police let Nancy look through their sketches of wanted criminals with no supervision, and Nancy draws a beard on one of them. The sketches, I mean, not the police. Instead of telling her off for tampering with police property, the chief of police identifies him as the mystery bird-freer. His name is Slick Fingers O'Mayley. Of course it is.

Nancy calls her "special friend", Ned, and asks him to help her do some sleuthing. Apparently it's the summer holidays and Ned is selling insurance, but he happily gives it up help Nancy. He also accompanies her to the Thurstons', where Mrs Thurston is confronted by a ghostly, leaping spectre, who gives her a piece of paper with a jinx on it. She pretty much goes into hysterics, and Ned and Nancy offer to help the couple out while she recovers. This is a bad idea, since Ned gets knocked unconscious while Nancy is cooking dinner.

Nancy figures that Mrs Thurston's spectre could be a ballerina, based on the fact that he leaps. You know what else he could be? A long-jumper. The two N's head to the ballet. Nancy finds out the mystery leaper is probably Merv Marvel, who was kicked out of the company for unsavoury behaviour, but who had a fascination for superstitions and jinxes. The company director teases Nancy into dancing for him, and she turns out to be so good that professional dancers stop what they're doing to ooo and aaaah. I can only assume Nancy's dancing resembles Scott Hasting's:



Ned comes down with bird 'flu (actually, ornithosis which is really a thing even though I assumed it was made up) and Nancy gets really worried about him, which I can't mock because it's super cute. Despite being completely delirious, Ned realises that if he was deliberately made ill, then Slick Fingers will be sick too, so Nancy tries to find the hospital that is treating him. She not only discovers where O'Malley is being treated, but she also discovers he has a tattoo shaped like the jinx that the leaping ghoul gave to Mrs Thurston.

Since the High Rise Construction Company can't have the aviary condemned without the local council's approval, Nancy et al. do their best to convince the councillors to vote against the condemnation. Bess and George take it upon themselves to visit one of the councillors, a newspaper owner, themselves, and he shows interest in their proposal that the development be redesigned to include the aviary. He considers running some editorials in favour of the idea, and offers to show the girls around the offices. Everything is going swell until some little punk covers the girls with glue and red ink. Presumably some fashion journalist disapproved of their sweater-and-jeans combo. Personally, I think Bess can work it, but I'd like to see George in something a little more feminine ocassionally. She'd look fierce in a maxi dress.

Meanwhile, some crazy shit has been going down with Kammy Foreignerovich. First she packed up and leaves the Thurstons for no apparent reason; then she gets accused of stealing from her college; then her wryneck disappears. Nancy quickly clears up the confusion over the stolen items - Kammy's professor didn't think for a second that she was the culprit. It turns out that Kammy only left the Thurstons' because she thought she was bringing them bad luck. And, lastly, Petra reappears - with a missing heirloom of Kammy's taped under her wing. The plot thickens!

Mr Drew tells Nancy that all councillors but one have been convinced by her plan to include the aviary in the new development. The only one left stands to gain some serious money out of the new housing, and yet the fact that he has a vested interest in the deal is at no time pointed out as being the gateway to corruption. I guess political corruption doesn't exist in River Heights. Nancy offers to take his nine grandchildren to the aviary, and squeezes them all (plus Bess and George) into the car. She's immediately pulled over by a cop, but luckily the combined power of Nancy' wholesomeness and the children's lovableness is more than enough to assuage the policeman's need to arrest Nancy for breaking the law and endangering the life of each of her eleven passengers.

The children love the aviary, and mention to Nancy that not only have they seen the same dancing spook as Mrs Thurston, but they ocassionaly get visited by a "Mr Mervman" who threatens to put a jinx on them. Nancy, not being a complete and utter moron, assumes this is Merv Marvel. The kids love the aviary, and Nancy hopes their enthusiasm will convince their grandfather that it's worth keeping.

Nancy's tackled the councillors, but now she wants to talk to the High Rise Construction Company, too. Her and Ned go to the site where the company is currently working, and one of the workers suggests they have look over the river which runs next to the site. Then he pushes them into the river, and they go over a waterfall. Luckily, not only do they survive, but a cop saw them go over, and they get him to arrest the worker who tried to kill them.

Back at the aviary, Rausch tells Nancy that he's just chased off someone who was trying to poison the birds. Upon investigating, Nancy discovers that whoever it was dropped an envelope full of expensive rings. Assuming he'll be back to find his lost jewellry, she contacts the police, who arrive in time to snatch the guy - Slick Fingers O'Malley.

Then, finally, the scene which is on the front cover actually happens. Nancy goes for a stroll around the aviary by herself and Merv Marvel kidnaps her. He's described as tall and handsome. Nancy, isn't it a little early to be suffering from Stokholm Syndrome? Merv admits that he was working for Mr Wright, the boss at the construction company, but he wants to stop because Mr Wright "isn't honest". Slick Fingers was the one that stole the stuffed wryneck, trying to scare Nancy off the case. The fact that she wasn't actually on the case at that point seems to be irrelevent. Merv takes quite a fancy to Nancy, and takes her to an old barn to be initiated into his cult.

Help for Nancy isn't too far away. Ned finds her and Merv's footprints, and Nancy's friends and the police follow them to the barn. Nancy... somehow escapes, and tells the police that Merv clearly needs psychiatric treatment more than he needs jail, and that he's a member of a cult which scams money out of people. This cult thing seems to have come out of nowhere, but whatever, I can role with it. As for what happened to Nancy in the barn - well, who knows what really went on in there? But I imagine it went something like this:



So, to conclude: Mr Wright, of the High Rise Construction Company, employed Slick Finger and Merv Marvel to do his dirty work. He also instructed one of his employees to push Ned and Nancy over that waterfall. Apparently he was involved in the set up of the cult, as a little side project to his fraud and coersion.

The councillors decide to go with another building company, one which doesn't want to condemn the aviary, and Bess and George have magically talked Mrs Thurston out of all of her superstitious beliefs.

Kammy's problems were actually unrelated - a boy that she had been friends with was messing with her, probably because she didn't want to be friends with someone who'd steal her pets and her jewelry as a joke. Nancy apologises for suspecting her, and gives her a kiss. Which is possibly more than she's ever given Ned. I'm just saying.

Case notes:

• Nancy is "an attractive girl of eighteen with blue eyes and reddish-blonde hair." Thank goodness they mentioned she was attractive: I'd hate to think that I was reading about someone who was in any way physically flawed.
• Mr Drew is constantly described as "tall, hands and distinguished-looking". I strongly hope that was just the narrative and not Nancy's thoughts on the subject. I don't want the Drews going all Flowers in the Attic on me.
• I thought I remembered Nancy having a Mustang, but here it's only described as a "convertible".
• When Ned and Nancy speak to one of the councilllors, he thinks they're there to get a marriage license. Ned seems pretty upset that they're not.
• Ned and Nancy are a seriously awesome couple in this book: instead of Ned getting all "I don't want you to get into danger" protector-ish, he admires her for her intelligence and sleuthing abilities.
• Hannah and Nancy also have quite a sweet relationship. Despite effectively being the Drew's servant, Hannah mothers Nancy and encourages her when she's down. Awww.
• Merv Marvel sounds more like a kids' party magician than a professional dancer and part-time spook impersonator.
• One woman Nancy talks to is surprised that such a "lovely and wholesome girl would be trying to track down a criminal".
• Everytime someone brings up a curse, or is cursed, Nancy or one of her friends say, "Of course, we're not superstitious." I'm sure this was probably intended as an Important Message About Superstition for America's Youths, but it comes across more like they're trying to convince themselves of the fact.
• When Kammy thinks she's going to be arrested for being a thief Nancy tells her, "Here in America people are given a chance to prove their innocence before they're arrested." Not like whatever crazy Eurasian country you're from, Kammy!
• There is so, so much information about birds in this book. Someone clearly had a long, hard read of the encyclopaedia before writing it.
• This entire recap is longer than any of the chapters in the book. And ever single chapter ends on a cliffhanger (apart from the last one). No wonder I'm so exhausted after reading it.
• High Rise Construction Company. I know I already made fun of that name, but I think it bares repeating.

The cover:
I've assumed that's Merv Marvel kidnapping Nancy. Nancy's eyes look quite dead, although I suspect that 50 books in she's been kidnapped so often that it doesn't really excite her any more. That also seems like a pretty uncomfortable way to kidnap a person; at any moment Nancy may stop doing jazz hands and poke out one of his eyes. Merv's legs are at a slightly awkward angle, too - they look like they belong on someone else's body. Still, that bird is enjoying Nancy's yellow cardigan and matching shoes.