The Secret of Shadow Ranch

Happy Drews-day and today is one of my personal favorites, The Secret of Shadow Ranch.  Or The Secret AT Shadow Ranch for the original text.

OT on the left, and my two RT copies on the right.  I just got the one in the middle a couple of months ago at a used book store in Old Colorado City.  I think it's interesting that the book's title changed slightly.

The Secret at Shadow Ranch is the first OT Nancy Drew that I ever read, though it's not the first one I purchased.  I love the cover of it with the bright colors and you can tell instantly that this mystery takes place away from River Heights.  Also this book has that awesome vintage book smell and I love it.

The RT cover is similar in composition but with a darker color palette and, of course, the phantom which isn't in the OT.  I find it interesting that Nancy's depicted riding a bay horse on the OT when it doesn't specify what color her horse is, while in the RT it specifically says bay and yet they show her on a black horse.

I give both covers five stars, I don't have a favorite between the two because they're both awesome.  Let's take a look at the contents.

Case file:
Elizabeth "Bess" Marvin and her cousin George Fayne (a girl who happens to have a boy's name) beg their friend Nancy to come spend the summer with them at Shadow Ranch in Arizona, which was recently acquired by their uncle Richard "Dick" Rawley as payment for a debt.  Aunt Nell is going to check out the ranch and put things in order to most likely sell it, and she's taking Bess, George, and their other cousin Alice Regor, who is Dick's niece (Bess and George are Nell's nieces).  They tell Nancy that Alice's dad disappeared 8 years ago when Alice was 7 and no one knows why.

Nancy gets permission from Carson to go on the trip (he wants to go fishing in Canada anyway) so then we have a chapter of the girls buying new clothes and packing for the trip, then taking the train to Chicago where they meet up with Aunt Nell and Alice.  They continue on together and Nancy makes the acquaintance of Ross Rogers, who lives in Mougarstown near Shadow Ranch.  They arrive at the Mougarstown station and are met by George Miller, the ranch foreman, who refuses to call girl George by her first name (this turns into a running bit throughout the book).  The ranch is run down and all five cowboys employed there are over 40, to Bess's dismay.

George Miller gives the girls riding lessons and then clears them to go riding on their own on the ranch and neighboring Shadow Mountain.  On a 15-mile trail ride with cowboy Jack Glenwell as a guide, a storm comes up and swells a creek which they have to ford.  Bess freezes in fear midstream so Nancy has to go back and grab her horse's bridle and lead her safely across.  They stop at a small cabin on the mountain for shelter, but the cabin's occupant, Martha Frank, is extremely unfriendly.  Nancy is intrigued by the 12-year-old girl living there with Martha who doesn't look like she's related to her.

Back at the ranch, they decide to do a round-up of all the cows on the ranch so Nell can sell them, which is a good distraction for Alice who's bummed about her missing dad.  Nancy is (of course) the best of the girls at helping with the round-up.  In Mougarstown the next day, Nancy sees Martha Frank argue with a junk shop owner with the singularly amazing name of Zany Shaw and wonders what they're arguing about.

A few days later, the girls decide to ride into the mountains and have a picnic; Aunt Nell insists they take a revolver with them, which Nancy carries because she's the best shot (of course).  After their picnic lunch, the girls fall asleep and then a lynx spooks their horses, who bolt.  Nancy shoots the lynx, but they have to walk 7 to 8 miles back to the ranch since the horses skedaddled.  George twists her ankle so once again they stop at Martha's cabin, who's probably wondering why she can't get rid of these four nosy girls.  A rescue party comes from the ranch to get them so they don't have to walk all the way back.  The next day, Ross Rogers visits but he's a bit awkward and Nancy realizes he's unsure of his own name, which makes her even more curious about him.

Days go by and the girls keep going on trail rides and have encounters with a rattlesnake and a bear, and try fishing but they stink at it.  They go into Mougarstown to attend a dance and all three attract local admirers, who suggest that they do a moonlight ride sometime soon.  The next day, Nancy is riding solo when another storm rolls in, so she stops again at Martha's cabin and this time gets to talk to Lucy, the girl who lives there.  They go through a trunk of items that Martha told Lucy to never mess with and Nancy finds a fancy doll and clothes with labels from Philadelphia.  She theorizes that Lucy was kidnapped and sends a telegram to Carson asking him to look into abduction cases in Philadelphia.

A few days later, George plans a trail ride but they get lost, so they end up taking shelter in a cave overnight.  The next morning they come across Lucy out picking berries and she helps them get back to the correct trail to return to Shadow Ranch.  Nancy wants to bring Lucy to stay at Shadow Ranch, but Martha won't allow it.

The girls' admirers from the dance come over on the night of a full moon for the moonlight ride and they happen to take the trail up by Martha's cabin.  They see Lucy run away from the cabin with Martha chasing her and threatening her; Lucy runs right off a small cliff, and she's knocked unconscious and has a broken arm.  Luckily Nancy's beau is a doctor, so he splints Lucy's arm and insists on taking her back to Shadow Ranch since Martha was clearly abusing her.  Nancy finally gets a response from Carson:  there was one kidnap case that matches Lucy--Louise Bowen, who was 3 1/2 and whose parents are now both deceased.

The next day, Martha demands Lucy's return and while she's camped out at the ranch, Nancy sneaks out the back and goes back to look through the trunk at Martha's cabin.  She finds a tiny child's ring with the initials LB on it and decides that's proof that Lucy Brown is Louise Bowen.  Zany catches her at the cabin, but she punches him under the chin (way to go, Nancy) and flees back to the ranch. 

Martha refuses to answer questions about Lucy until Nancy threatens her with the authorities.  Martha finally says that Zany, her brother (real name is Zeke Work which isn't as good as Zany Shaw), kidnapped Louise to get back at Louise's father, who had unfairly accused him of stealing.  A good Samaritan tried to stop them, but Zany hit him on the head; they thought he was dead so they ran with the child.  Turns out the good Samaritan was Ross Rogers, who lost his memory after the blow to the head.  Nancy decides that she won't press charges against Martha and Zany if they leave and never come back, which they do.

Nancy figures out somehow that Ross Rogers is actually Robert Ross Regor, Alice's long-lost dad (Aunt Nell had never met him, that's why she didn't recognize him); his identity is confirmed when Uncle Dick shows up.  Alice and Mr. Regor are excited to be reunited and also plan to adopt Lucy/Louise.  When the foreman George Miller takes Nancy and everyone else to the train station to leave, he finally calls girl George by her first name.  Uncle Dick and Aunt Nell decide to hold onto the ranch for now.

Notes:  I swear my "summaries" of the books are getting longer and longer.  Anyway, like I said, this is the very first original text Nancy Drew I ever read, and it was quite the experience.  There was a marked effort in the beginning to establish the personalities of Bess and George, who are introduced in this book, which was nice.  Bess is timid and loves food and boys, George is brash and frequently rude to Bess about her weight (the fat shaming starts here and goes on for decades, which I wish wasn't a thing).  If I recall correctly, George and Bess were the invention of Edward Stratemeyer's secretary to be Nancy's friends, and they pretty much pushed Helen out of the series (Helen getting married was added in the revised texts as a reason why she's no longer Nancy's mystery-solving BFF).  I recommend Melanie Rehak's book Girl Sleuth for more information on the behind-the-scenes of Nancy's creation.

The plotline with Alice and her missing dad is interesting but does have some holes.  If her dad disappeared when Alice was 7, I doubt she would still be so depressed about it 8 years later; after that much time, I think it would be normal to her for him not to be in her life.  In my opinion she acts more like he disappeared sometime in the last year, not more than half her life ago.  Finally we get someone who suffers some ill effects from being struck on the head since Mr. Regor loses his memory.  Also it's very convenient that the Regors decide to adopt Lucy/Louise without even discussing it with Alice's mom first.

I feel like this book is more of an adventure story than a mystery on the whole.  Most of the book is about Nancy, Bess, George, and Nancy riding around the ranch and having adventures in the mountains; the mysteries don't show up until pretty late in the book and the only detective work that Nancy does is rifle through the trunk in Martha's cabin and ask Carson to look into abduction cases in Philadelphia.  I was also surprised by Nancy using a pistol in this book, since I hadn't read the OT versions of the first four when I first read this one and she does handle a gun in a couple of other books.  Still, it's fun to read something written in the 1930s and read about things like Pullman cars on the train and how Aunt Nell doesn't like it when George uses slang like "Oh, man!"  I know I'm clutching my metaphorical pearls at that verbal outburst.

Nancy's Knockout Tally, OT Edition:  
She manages to stay conscious for this entire book, so the tally still stands at
Blunt force trauma:  2
Near suffocation:  1

Let's take a look at the RT.

Case file:  
Nancy Drew arrives in Arizona to be met by Bess and George for a vacation at Shadow Ranch, but they tell her that they'll all have to leave the following day as someone is trying to sabotage the ranch and Uncle Ed says it's not safe.  They tell her about a phantom horse appearing and a windmill being pulled down, and then Nancy notices a man eavesdropping on their conversation.  They find a note warning them away from the ranch when they get to the ranch wagon to start their 150-mile drive to the ranch.

On the way, they get stopped by a sandstorm and then the ranch wagon overheats; the girls discover that the water bottle that was supposed to be filled up by Shorty Steele (one of the ranch hands) is empty, so they have to be rescued by Dave Gregory, another of the ranch hands.  They finally arrive at the ranch and Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet agree to let the girls stay to investigate.  Nancy meets Alice Regor, Bess and George's cousin, whose father disappeared six months ago after a bank robbery.

The first night at the ranch, Nancy wakes up and sees a prowler go into the kitchen, but he disappears, and the next morning the water pump has been sabotaged.  Nancy goes to the town of Tumbleweed with Dave to report to the sheriff and get parts for the pump.  While in town, Nancy foils the attempted robbery of a shop belonging to Mary Deer, who gives Nancy a watch that once belonged to Frances Humber.  Frances lived on Shadow Ranch decades ago and was in love with the outlaw Dirk Valentine (excellent name), but her dad the sheriff shot Valentine dead and no one has found the outlaw's treasure.  Also, the phantom horse is supposed to belong to Dirk Valentine; he cursed Shadow Ranch when the sheriff shot him.  Nancy also buys a pastel drawing at the shop, which Alice later recognizes as the work of her missing father.

Later that evening, Nancy gets her first look at the phantom horse; the ranch dog Chief runs after the horse and disappears, and the girls' room is ransacked while everyone is out trying to chase the phantom.  The next day, the girls take a ride with Shorty as their guide to investigate a cabin on the mountain, but he takes a "shortcut" and keeps them from getting to the cabin.  He's really good at attracting suspicion.  Later Nancy finds a message inside Frances' watch that references a green bottle.  The girls go riding and check out a nearby ghost town, where they see a couple of men running away and find a crushed pastel crayon in the street.  Nancy goes inside a building and a rockslide takes it out but she's fine because she's mostly indestructible.  They find the cabin that Shorty tried to keep them away from, and Chief comes running out.  On the way back to the ranch, there's a big storm which swells a creek, and just like in the OT Bess freezes and has to be rescued by Nancy.

That night, Nancy wants to have her horse saddled and ready to chase the phantom, but someone locks her in the tack room.  She sees a light in the spring house but no one is there, so she deduces that there's a secret passage from the spring house to the cellar of the main house.  The next day, the girls and all the cowboys go to Tumbleweed to pick up some horses Uncle Ed bought, and Nancy meets Mr. Diamond at Mary's shop, who is very interested in the Dirk Valentine treasure.  That night, Nancy finds Dave digging up the floor of the cellar and he admits that he's looking for the treasure because he's one of Frances Humber's descendants.  Dave was the prowler in the kitchen on Nancy's first night at the ranch.  Pooling their knowledge of the legends about Dirk Valentine and Frances Humber, Nancy figures out that Frances hid something in an oil lamp which is conveniently still in a storage room--they find a letter about the treasure.

As they're reading the letter, the lights go out and the phone line is dead; Nancy heads for the stable and is ready to go when the phantom appears, but it runs through the herd of new horses and Nancy falls off her horse and gets knocked out.  The fences have been cut so now all the ranch hands are busy trying to round up the horses and fix the fences.  The next day while all the men are working, Nancy and her friends go to town and buy "squaw dresses" (ugh) to wear to a rodeo-barbecue-dance that they're going to with the ranch cowboys.

Nancy and Alice want to investigate the cabin where they found Chief; Shorty saddles the horses and puts a nettle under Nancy's saddle so the horse rears, but Nancy manages not to fall off this time and Shorty denies doing it.  They remove the nettle and go to the cabin, where they find a man named Bursey who claims to be the pastel artist despite the obvious fact that he doesn't know anything about art.  Nancy calls the sheriff who says he'll go arrest Bursey because Nancy thinks that he's keeping Alice's dad prisoner somewhere.  (If I was the sheriff, I would want more proof than what Nancy has.)

Nancy announces that the Dirk Valentine treasure has to be in the cliff houses which used to be a part of the ranch, because the letter said it was in the oldest house on the ranch.  The girls and cowboys all go to the rodeo-barbecue-dance thing and win a square dancing competition; Nancy announces to the entire crowd that she knows where the treasure is because she wants to pull a trick on the men who are sabotaging the ranch.

Back at the ranch the next day, Uncle Ed and some of the cowboys send out a diversion party with shovels to trick Bursey and his conspirators as to where they're looking for the treasure.  Nancy, Bess, George, and Alice ride around the mountain for most of the day and find the phantom horse's paddock near the cabin before they finally go to the cliff houses at dusk to look for the treasure.  They find Alice's dad immediately, who tells them that the bank robbers have kept him prisoner for six months and include Bursey, Diamond, and Shorty Steele.  Nancy finds the treasure in another cliff dwelling and lights a signal fire to notify Uncle Ed, but then she gets caught by the bank robber gang.  The villains monologue and argue about who gets what, and that gives Uncle Ed and the sheriff enough time to show up and capture them.  Nancy refuses to take any of the treasure despite being the one who found it.

Notes:
I was an incredibly horse crazy kid so this book was one of my childhood favorites.  It's also the debut for Bess and George, who are Nancy's ride-or-die friends for many many more books.  The glowing phantom horse is straight out of a Scooby-Doo episode, but I love Scooby-Doo so that's not really a criticism.  I love the Old West legends about Dirk Valentine (excellent outlaw name, five stars) and hidden treasure.

One thing that's funny when you read the books in order is that in the revised text, Nancy's boyfriend Ned is mentioned and she doesn't meet him for the first time until #7, The Clue in the Diary.  At the beginning of the book, Nancy is knitting a sweater and in the matte cover book, it's for Ned whereas in the flashlight version (the one I had as a kid), the sweater is for Carson.  They still left in another mention of Ned though:  in the middle of the book, when discussing the cute cowboys, Bess and George ask Nancy what Ned would think and she says he's in Europe so he wouldn't know anyway.

The original text had zero mention of indigenous people, so I thought the inclusion of Mary as a native character (and owner of her own business) and the cliff houses was an improvement.  However, Nancy and the girls buying "squaw dresses" for the dance is...not great.

Martha Frank and the abducted child are completely gone from the revised version, but I found it interesting how they still worked in the cabin on the mountain as the bank robbers' hideout.  I still have issues with the Ross Regor storyline though; this time he's been held prisoner of the bank robbers for six months.  No way would real criminals keep him alive that long and drag him all over the countryside--they would have gotten rid of him when he accidentally saw them robbing the bank!  Also, Shorty is a very obvious suspect from the jump.

Nancy's Knockout Tally, RT Edition:  3, she adds one this time thanks to falling off her horse

Nancy's Skills:
Nancy is an excellent rider and bakes excellent chocolate cakes.  She also stays calm when Chief growls at her on their first meeting and soon has the dog practically eating out of her hand, to the amazement of Uncle Ed and the cowboys.

Nancy Drew, Fashion Model:
When she arrives in Phoenix, Nancy is wearing an olive green knit dress with matching shoes and beige accessories; George wears a brown linen dress and Bess wears pale blue (which is usually Nancy's color).  Later, Nancy wears a yellow blouse and skirt with a matching pullover sweater.  After rescuing Bess from the flooded creek, the girls all clean up and Nancy wears a powder blue sweater and skirt; George wears a dark green linen dress, and Bess wears a yellow sweater and skirt (wonder if she and Nancy just switched clothes).  Finally Nancy wears jeans sometimes!  When they buy the dresses for the rodeo-barbecue-dance thing, Nancy's is turquoise blue with silver trim; George buys a bold red one, Bess a yellow skirt with a black bodice, and Alice chooses a pumpkin-colored dress.

Cooking with Hannah:
We only get a phone conversation with Hannah, but she has to be the one who taught Nancy how to bake chocolate cakes.

Rating:  
Five stars for both because horses.  Hey, I make the rules for the rating system!

The Mystery at Lilac Inn

Happy Drews-day, it's time for a look at The Mystery at Lilac Inn!

The one on the left is the OT, which is a blue tweed book with dust jacket because they didn't publish the OT with a picture cover (I just looked and I have five dust jacket books, not counting the Applewood editions).  The scene is from near the end of the book when Nancy breaks into a house to spy on the bad guys.

The one on the right is my childhood copy of the RT.  A mysterious ghostly figure has appeared at Lilac Inn, so Nancy dresses up as the ghost to confront her--Nancy is actually the brunette in the corner (she was wearing a wig).  They used tiny flashlights in their sleeves to achieve the ghostly effect.

I like both covers but I think the Scooby-Doo feel of the RT cover puts it over the top as my favorite from this pair.  So let's take a look at the OT:

Case file:
We begin with Nancy driving to Lilac Inn to have lunch; she happens to meet former schoolmate Emily Crandall, so they have lunch together.  Emily has just found out that she'll get an inheritance from her grandmother on her upcoming 18th birthday:  the famous Crandall jewel collection, which is mostly diamonds and worth at least $40,000 (in 1930s money).

When Nancy gets home, we find out that Hannah Gruen is leaving them (!!!) to care for her ill sister, so now Nancy is in charge of finding a new housekeeper for the Drews before a very important judge comes to stay with them.  Nancy interviews several housekeepers before meeting Mary Mason, whom she decides to hire despite getting a bad vibe off of her because Mary has excellent references.  However, when Mary finds out that she'd be working for famous attorney Carson Drew, she turns down the job and leaves.  Nancy finally employs the elderly Mrs. Sadie Carter.

Nancy goes to visit Emily, who tells her that she's engaged to Dick Farnham and plans to sell some of the Crandall jewels to help him get a business off the ground so they can support themselves when they get married.  Emily's guardian, Mrs. Jane Willoughby, goes to the bank with her friend Clara Potter to retrieve the diamonds; they stop at Lilac Inn to eat on the way back, but they act totally suspicious because they have a fortune with them.  There's a car crash just outside the inn, and when everyone rushes to look someone steals Mrs. Willoughby's handbag with the diamonds in it and she immediately has the vapors.  She insists that everyone at the inn be searched, but they don't find the jewels.  Mrs. Willoughby consults with Carson since the police suspect her of engineering the theft herself, and Emily asks Nancy to take the case.

Nancy interviews Mrs. Potter, who gets a bit uncooperative with Nancy's questions; then she goes to Lilac Inn to interview the manager and check out the scene of the crime.  She also visits the other patrons of the inn (no explanation as to how she knows who was there) but doesn't get any further information.  Helen Corning comes to visit Nancy while she's stumped, so she insists that Nancy accompany her on a dress shopping expedition as a distraction.  While at the high-end boutique, they see Mary Mason who seems to have suddenly come into a lot of money as she is wearing expensive clothes; she had been shabbily dressed when Nancy interviewed her for the housekeeping job.  Nancy decides to check on Mary's references, and discovers from her previous employer Mrs. Stonewell that Mary had forged the recommendation and lied about how long she worked for Mrs. Stonewell.  Nancy learns that Mary has a brother in Dockville; she drives there and finds evidence that Mary has been spending quite a lot of money lately despite living in a slum.

While out in town to check out the River Heights pawnbrokers for the jewels, Nancy notices a man with a hook nose and flashy clothes who drops an envelope with Mason's name and address on it, so she follows him.  They end up on a train to Winchester, 30 miles away, but she loses him in a neighborhood with a bunch of pawnshops.  Back at home, Nancy finds out from Carson that the police plan to arrest Mrs. Willoughby for stealing the jewels.  Nancy decides to go talk to Mary Mason again, so she drives to Dockville and sees Mary with two men in a motorboat.  They go into the house, so Nancy opens a window and sneaks inside to spy on the trio, who discuss the jewel theft and argue about how they're splitting the proceeds.  Mary Mason had gone to Lilac Inn the day of the theft to apply for a job, but she saw Mrs. Willoughby acting suspicious with her giant handbag and took advantage of the car crash distraction to snatch the purse without ever even going inside, so no one knew she'd been there.  Hook Nose (real name:  Tom Tozzle, which is pretty fantastic) had begun pawning the diamonds in Winchester, the third person is Mary's brother Bud.

The trio of crooks catch Nancy spying on them, so they tie her up, gag her, and drag her onto the motorboat in the middle of a storm so they can skip town.  Mary villain monologues to Nancy about the jewel theft until the boat crashes into another one on the river and starts to sink (hey look, another boating accident!); the crooks leave Nancy tied up to drown, but she's able to shout for help and a lot of convenient bystanders keep Mary and the two men from escaping.  Mary accuses Nancy of being the thief and dares her to produce the jewels she claims that Mary and the men stole; Nancy goes on the boat which was prevented from sinking and finds the diamonds hidden in a clock.  Nancy returns the jewels to Emily and she and Mrs. Willoughby throw a big party in Nancy's honor at Lilac Inn.  Emily gives Nancy a beautiful bracelet set with precious stones and asks Nancy to be her maid of honor.

Notes:
When I read that Hannah was leaving the Drews, I think I actually yelled WHAT?! out loud and then Hannah isn't mentioned for the remainder of the book.  The HECK.  Obviously she doesn't stay gone, but she's not mentioned again until #6, The Secret of Red Gate Farm.  Apparently Nancy tried out many other servants before SHE hired Hannah?!  I'm used to Hannah having been with the family since Mrs. Drew died when Nancy was 3 so that was jarring to read.  I thought the subplot about Nancy having to find a new housekeeper was a bit tiresome; the book goes into quite a bit of detail about several unsatisfactory housekeepers interviewed by Nancy before she meets Mary Mason.  

Once again,  Helen appears in this book but only for a short time; she gets a lot more to do in the RT, the same as what happened with The Hidden Staircase.  While on the shopping trip, Helen decides on a pale blue chiffon party dress, which is what Nancy bought in The Secret of the Old Clock.

This book is like The Bungalow Mystery in that it involves an inheritance of jewels and the attempted theft thereof.  Lots of people have expensive jewel collections in the Drew-niverse.  Guess that was less risky than having money in the bank after the stock market crash in 1929?  Also, the jewels are found behind a clock face on the boat, which calls back the end of The Secret of the Old Clock.

Nancy's Knockout Tally, OT Edition:
From blunt force trauma to the head: 2
From near suffocation:  1

Nancy's Skills:
She is an excellent runner and outruns Mary Mason at the end of the book when she tries to escape; Nancy trips her up so she can be taken into custody.

Nancy's Mysterious Souvenir:
A bracelet set with precious jewels

Case file:  
Nancy and Helen canoe down the river (as you do) to Lilac Inn, which their friend Emily Willoughby and her fiance are renovating and plan to open soon after their wedding; on the way their canoe hits something underwater and capsizes.  At the inn, they learn from Emily that strange things have been happening and she thinks the inn is jinxed.  They also meet John McBride, best friend to Emily's fiance; Hazel Willoughby, Emily's aunt and guardian; and Maud Potter, Aunt Hazel's friend and the inn's social director.  Emily tells Nancy that a waitress named Mary Mason recently quit because she said the inn was haunted.

Hannah calls Nancy at the inn and says they had a break-in at the Drew house, so Aunt Hazel offers to drive Nancy back to River Heights.  Aunt Hazel is going to the bank to retrieve Emily's inheritance of 20 unset diamonds worth over $50,000, which Emily plans to use to finance renovations on the inn.  Maud invites herself along on the trip and Nancy doesn't like her, not least because Maud wants to put the moves on Carson (which made me chortle a bit).  At home, Nancy finds that her charge plate (credit card) for a specific department store has been stolen; she goes to the store and the manager accuses her of stealing $2,000 of merchandise earlier that morning--Nancy has a doppelganger.

That evening, they have a festive dinner for Emily's birthday and Aunt Hazel presents the diamonds.  Immediately after, there's a crash and the lights go out, and when they come back on the diamonds are gone.  Noticing some crushed lilac petals on the floor, Nancy soon discovers a secret panel that leads from the private dining room through a closet and out to the lobby.  They search the inn and Nancy finds her stolen charge plate, which she reports to Chief McGinnis.  The next day, John finds a jewel case under one of the lobby windows with the diamonds inside; Emily decides to take the diamonds to a jeweler immediately who tells them that the stones are fakes.

Back at the inn, Nancy gets a phone message from John inviting her to go skin diving in the river to try to find out what made the canoe capsize at the start of the book.  She doesn't see John, but goes diving anyway and sees something mysterious and shark-shaped, but someone throws a spear at her and she bugs out.  At the inn, John says he saw Nancy earlier and she told him to meet her somewhere else (so the doppelganger was at the inn).  That night, Helen can't sleep so she goes out for a walk in the middle of the night and sees a black-haired girl in a glowing dress before she gets knocked unconscious.  Nancy wakes up, sees that Helen is gone and goes to look for her along with John.  Right after they find Helen, the girls' cottage explodes!

Carson stops by the next day and is inexplicably okay with Nancy continuing to investigate the diamond theft even after someone tried to blow her up.  She goes back to River Heights to get more clothes for herself and Helen since theirs were lost in the explosion, and she doesn't even tell Helen's mother what happened.  The HECK, Nancy!  She then decides to investigate Mary Mason, the waitress who quit, and finds her in Dockville, or thinks she does.  Back at the inn, Nancy dresses up as the ghost but before she can confront the other ghost, she's caught by the guard Emily hired.  Nancy continues to investigate for the next couple of days and notices that Gil the gardener, Jean Holmes the new waitress, and Maud Potter all act suspiciously.  Then Maud gets in a fight with Aunt Hazel and quits, but no one is sad to see her go because she had been so unpleasant.

On the inn's grounds, Nancy finds a note in a tree addressed to Lillie Merriweather, an actress, and signed by Gay; Nancy and Helen go to visit Lillie and find out Gay Moreau is an actress who had been sent to prison for check forgery.  They see a photo of Gay and deduce that she is Nancy's doppelganger; Nancy suspects that Gay is also Mary Mason and that the one she'd met in Dockville was a fake.  Back at the inn, Nancy sees Jean acting oddly so she follows her to the river, where she's caught by Jean, Gil, and another man and forced into the shark-shaped mini submarine.  The sub has to resurface and so the criminals transfer Nancy to a boat and hitch the sub to it.  Jean is actually Gay Moreau, Mary Mason, AND Nancy's doppelganger; she villain monologues at Nancy and shows her how she makes herself look like Nancy until the boat hits a log and starts to sink (like in the OT, only then they hit another boat).  Again, Nancy is left tied up in the cabin but gets rescued by River Police Patrol.  Gay and the men get arrested; Nancy and John go skin diving later and find Emily's stolen diamonds in Gay's makeup kit.  Turns out John, an Army major, had been tracking stolen electronics, and Gay's confederates had been behind those thefts.  Nancy gets a Distinguished Civilian Service Medal for helping John crack that case, and Emily gives Nancy a diamond pin shaped like a spray of lilacs.

Notes:
Wow, there is a lot going on in this one and I even skipped over many of the more minor details.  We still have the jewel theft from the first book, but this time most of the action takes place at Lilac Inn whereas in the OT it was just where the theft happened to take place.  I like that the inn is featured more in the RT, there is a lot of talk about lilacs, their history, and how they're sometimes called blue pipes.  This version is similar to the upcoming Password to Larkspur Lane, which is also floral themed.  Emily Crandall has changed to Emily Willoughby, and her guardian Jane Willoughby changes to guardian/aunt Hazel Willoughby (side note:  I really like the name Hazel).  Clara Potter becomes Maud Potter and is much more unpleasant in the RT.  Usually everyone adores Nancy except for the criminals, but Maud doesn't like her at all which is what makes her an effective red herring in the RT.  I like it.

Once again the shorter RT adds many more complicated details to the mystery.  The OT focused on the jewel theft, and in the RT we have a shark-shaped submarine (where does one even acquire a shark-shaped submarine???  Do James Bond style villains have their own shopping catalog?), skin diving, the stolen credit card, and Nancy's doppelganger.  I do like how Gay's motivation for impersonating Nancy was that Carson had helped to put her in prison for check forgery, so she wanted revenge on him.  Gay even tries to convince Carson that she's the real Nancy at the end of the book, until Nancy trips her and then rubs off her makeup.

The shark sub and the ghost subplot definitely lean into Scooby-Doo territory, and the John McBride/Army tech subplot feels shoehorned in a bit.  I could have done without those elements and more focus on the inn and the jewel theft like in the original.  Seems like a trend where the OTs are more straightforward and there are a lot more complicated subplots in the RTs even though they're shorter.

Nancy's Knockout Tally, RT Edition: 2 (she doesn't get knocked out in this one, way to go Nancy!)

Nancy's Skills:
Nancy is so good at skin diving that she had her picture in the paper with an accompanying story.  Must have been a slow news day in River Heights.

Nancy Drew, Fashion Model:
Nancy and Helen change into pastel cotton dresses when they arrive at the inn; they're supposed to wear "lilac pink" bridesmaid dresses for Emily's wedding.  At Emily's birthday dinner, Nancy wears a pink sheath dress and pumps (later "borrowed" by her doppelganger when she impersonates Nancy at the inn) while Helen wears an aqua organdy dress.  The next day Nancy puts on a casual sweater, skirt, and loafers to search for clues on the grounds, and later wears a green cotton dress.

Cooking with Hannah:
Hannah makes lunch for Nancy but there are no specifics.  At least in this version there's no question of Hannah leaving the Drews, which is a relief.  Unless Hannah comes to live with me, I'd like that.  She could teach me how to make apple pudding.

Nancy's Mysterious Souvenir:
A diamond pin shaped like a spray of lilacs

Rating:
4 stars for the OT, I didn't like the Hannah leaving/hiring a new housekeeper subplot in that one because it went on for so long.  4 stars for the RT, because I like how Lilac Inn is much more developed as a setting and there's a secret passage.  I'm a sucker for secret passages.  But I knocked off a star for the complicated subplots.

The Hidden Staircase

Happy Drews-day, and let's dive right into The Hidden Staircase.

The top two books are the original text (Applewood edition on the right), and the bottom two are the revised text.  I was curious so I compared the two OT texts and the reprint is a page-for-page reproduction, including a couple of typos.  So let's talk covers.

The Bill Gillies cover is the two books on the left.  In the OT, the mansion that Nancy is investigating has never been wired for electricity, hence the candles, and she does show two old ladies a hidden passage in the house.  I believe the top right is the Russell Tandy artwork, and bottom right is Rudy Nappi's.  Interesting how Nancy is wearing blue on all of the covers, just the style of her clothing and hair changes somewhat.

The Rudy Nappi cover is used for a lot of other Nancy Drew related merchandise, it's an absolute classic, but I quite like the Gillies cover as well.  So let's take a look at the texts.

Case file:
Nancy is alone at her house when a man named Nathan Gombet from Cliffwood rings the bell and pushes past her into the house, claiming that Carson Drew cheated him out of money in relation to land bought by a railroad to build a bridge.  He even lays hands on Nancy but leaves when she gets a hand on the phone and threatens to call the police.  Soon after, Allie Horner (from The Secret of the Old Clock) drops by; she knows Gombet and doesn't like him.  When Carson gets home, he's unconcerned about Gombet's threats.

Nancy goes to visit Abigail Rowen (also from Old Clock) and meets Rosemary Turnbull, who says her house in Cliffwood is haunted and asks Nancy to investigate.  She and her twin sister Floretta (both spinsters) have experienced sinister shadows, mysterious music, and purloined possessions, but the police don't believe them.  I like alliteration.  Carson gives Nancy permission to investigate The Mansion while he's in Chicago, and he gives Nancy his revolver for protection while he's gone.  Before she leaves for Cliffwood, Nancy gets a threatening letter even though she hadn't told anyone she was going except for Carson.

The Mansion is dates back to at least the Civil War, made of white stone but it's dark and crumbling now; it has never been wired for electricity and has no phone.  The sisters are described as elderly but at one point the book says they're "nearly 30 years older than Nancy" and on behalf of all mid-40s people everywhere I say HEY, I am not elderly.  RUDE.  Nancy and the two ladies search from attic to basement but find nothing, and the first night Nancy hears a scream but can't find where it came from.  More items are stolen, including a silver urn and black silk dresses.  The Turnbulls tell Nancy that Gombet wants to buy The Mansion for a low-ball price (even though he owns the house near them which is a duplicate of The Mansion) and even threatened them, so she thinks he's behind the ghostly behavior and that it's a way to scare the Turnbulls into selling The Mansion to him.

Nancy worries that she hasn't heard from her father in several days, but doesn't yet know that Gombet intercepted Carson at the Cliffwood train station and tricked him into believing that Nancy was seriously injured; Gombet takes Carson to his house and takes Carson prisoner.  Late at night, she takes Carson's revolver and sneaks into Gombet's house and looks around while he's gone.  She has to sneak by Gombet's servant who is referred to only as "the colored woman".  She hides in a closet in an upstairs room to evade the servant and that's when she finds a hidden passage at the back of the closet; she falls down a flight of stairs and is knocked out from hitting her head so here's her first head trauma.

Nancy follows the long and twisty secret passage and this whole section is very descriptive and creepy and well written and I loved it.  She eventually finds several staircases leading back up and opens a secret panel into the attic at The Mansion.  The next morning, Nancy and the Turnbull sisters explore the passage more and they notify the police that they think Gombet is using the passageways to scare them into selling.  The sheriff is initially unimpressed until Nancy name-drops her dear old Dad, and then he agrees to investigate.

They all go back to Gombet's mansion and the sheriff's blundering leads them to a standoff with the servant woman in the kitchen armed with a shotgun.  Nancy takes the sheriff and a deputy back to The Mansion and they use the secret passage to get into Gombet's house and break the standoff with the servant woman, who finally tells them that Gombet is upstairs with "the prisoner".  Nancy and the sheriff race upstairs and hear Gombet threatening Carson, but they burst in and save the day.  To thank Nancy for solving their ghost mystery, the Turnbull sisters give Nancy the silver urn that Gombet had stolen, which is a very valuable family heirloom.

Notes:
This one is significantly different from the RT so it was like reading a totally new Nancy Drew mystery.  I like the connections with the side characters from The Secret of the Old Clock at the beginning, and the part where Nancy is exploring the secret passageways by herself is absolutely fantastic.  So creepy and atmospheric, it's awesome.  Then we get to Gombet's servant, "the colored woman" who is never given a name and is described as old, fat, and slovenly, and she speaks in an uneducated manner (just like Jeff Turner, the caretaker from The Secret of the Old Clock).  That part definitely deserved revision.

At the beginning, Nancy is at her house by herself and has a scary encounter with Nathan Gombet, who actually does physically grab her before she gets him to leave.  And yet a few days later when she is once again home alone, she feels scared when the doorbell rings and she still OPENS THE DOOR, which had me yelling at her in the book.  (That's when she finds the threatening note.)  Just because the doorbell rings that doesn't mean you have to open the door, especially if you're already a little wigged out and home alone.  Come on, Nancy.

I was also thinking how differently the part with the sheriff would have been written now.  Obviously this book was written decades before Miranda rights came into being, but they all just barge on into Gombet's house with basically just Nancy's word that he's guilty of something and the sheriff even suggests firing through the door into the kitchen when the servant woman won't let them in (one of the deputies is like nah boss, we can't do that and why isn't THIS guy the sheriff?).  When they do find Gombet and Carson, Gombet is trying to coerce Carson into signing a contract to give him $20K and the sheriff confiscates this evidence and puts it in his pocket.  I found that pretty funny considering how many police procedural shows I've watched : ) No evidence bags here.  What forensics?

Nancy's Knockout Tally, OT Edition: 1

Nancy's Mysterious Souvenirs:  
The Turnbulls' silver urn

Now to the RT version.

Revised case file:
A man named Nathan Gomber (not Gombet) delivers a vague warning that Carson is in danger because of a case he was working on involving a railroad buying some land.  Then Nancy's friend Helen Corning (also featured in The Secret of the Old Clock) introduces Nancy to her great aunt Rosemary Hayes, who lives in the "old family mansion" called Twin Elms with her mother, Flora Turnbull, who is Helen's great-grandmother.  They've been experiencing odd things and say the mansion is haunted, so they invite Nancy to come investigate.  Nancy talks everything over with Carson when he gets home, and he tells her to work on the haunted house thing while he goes to Chicago in relation to Gomber's railroad case.

Nancy and Helen go to Twin Elms, which is a Colonial-era home flanked by giant elms, made of red brick and covered with ivy (different from how The Mansion is described, but still a giant old place).  Some jewelry has just been stolen, so Nancy investigates immediately but they can't figure out how the thief/ghost is getting in and out.  Nathan Gomber shows up because he wants to buy Twin Elms, but he offers the women a low price and they tell him to leave.  Nancy, Helen, Aunt Rosemary, and Miss Flora experience a few weird things so they ask the police to have a guard there at night.  Despite several investigations, Nancy and Helen can't figure out how someone is getting in and around the mansion.

Nancy gets worried when she doesn't hear from Carson when he said he would stop by Twin Elms upon returning from Chicago, and confirms with Hannah that he should be there by now.  It turns out Carson was abducted from a taxicab by three men.  Nancy reports to the Cliffwood police (who mention River Heights' Captain McGinnis, who will feature later in many stories as Chief McGinnis) and she goes back to Twin Elms, where the ceiling in the hall suddenly falls in on Nancy and Helen.  Nancy is knocked unconscious for a few minutes but says she doesn't need a doctor (yes you do, Nancy).  That wasn't the ghost though, the house is run down and there's been a leak in the ceiling.

Nancy finally finds a secret passage in the parlor and they discover that someone has been using it to eavesdrop on all their conversations in the kitchen.  Nancy decides to investigate nearby Riverview Manor, which is a twin estate to Twin Elms (they were built by brothers), which she finds out has just been sold to Nathan Gomber.  The realtor gives her the key to Riverview anyway, so she and Helen go over there to investigate and they find a secret passage.  Underground, they meet up with Willie Wharton, who is part of Carson's case with the railroad; he's been hiding out and pretending to be the ghost under Gomber's orders, but he wants out so he confesses everything to Nancy.  She then calls the police and they all explore the passage again, finding Carson hidden and drugged in an underground room.  Carson is rescued and Gomber gets arrested; he wanted to buy Twin Elms for a low price because he planned to turn it and Riverview into a housing development, so at least we know his motivation.

Notes:
In the OT, Helen has a short scene with Nancy and says she wishes she could have helped out on the previous mystery; Nancy decides not to tell her about the haunted mansion case she has now because Helen is "a natural born gossip", so it's kind of nice that in the RT Helen is the one who brings Nancy the mystery and she's around to help investigate the whole time.  Twin sisters Rosemary and Floretta Turnbull have morphed into Miss Flora Turnbull and her daughter Rosemary Hayes, Helen's relatives, and the The Mansion has been updated slightly so at least now it has electricity and a phone.  Also, Helen is described as being three years older than Nancy and in this book she gets engaged to Jim Archer, which will give her a reason not to be involved as much in Nancy's mysteries in the future.

In the OT, Nancy goes to investigate the neighboring estate late at night by herself and ends up traversing the whole secret passage alone, as I said before that part of the book is absolutely amazing.  In the RT, it's watered down a lot--it's daytime (I guess that doesn't matter in an underground passage but still), Nancy has Helen and then later the police with her, and it's just not as exciting.  I can see why the secret passage parts of the OT make it a fan favorite.  Carson has a couple of scenes with Gombet in the OT version where he refuses to do what Gombet wants, so Gombet threatens Nancy and the stakes are higher.  In the RT, all we find out is that Carson has been kept drugged underground for two days, so the OT is definitely more thrilling.  Instead of one woman servant, Nathan Gomber has three henchmen who help him in the RT, and two of them plus the cab driver sing like canaries as soon as Nancy starts asking them questions.  This happens a lot in future books too, Nancy is apparently a master interrogator.  And in the RT, she calls the police quite a few times vs. just once in the OT when they kinda bungle things; the RT police seem much more competent even if they're initially skeptical of the old ladies' tales of a ghost.

Nancy's Knockout Tally, RT Edition:  1

Nancy's Skills:  
Perseverance? She doesn't give up even though she looks several times for secret passages before she finds something.  Also interrogation, she gets answers from several people when the police were unable to.

Nancy Drew, Fashion Model:  
Actually this book doesn't mention Nancy's outfits except in passing.  To investigate the outbuildings on the Twin Elms estate, Nancy and Helen change into sport shirts and jeans, and another time it's mentioned that she's wearing a skirt, but no descriptions.

Cooking with Hannah:  
Most of the action takes place at Twin Elms, but before that Hannah makes tea and dainty sandwiches for Nancy, Helen, and Aunt Rosemary, then later serves a dinner of sliced oranges and grapefruit (ick, grapefruit), spring lamb, rice and mushrooms, fresh peas, and chocolate angel cake with vanilla ice cream.  I don't think I've ever heard of chocolate angel cake anywhere else, I'll have to look that up.  We still get mentions of food after the action moves to Twin Elms, but Hannah is only available by phone so we don't know what she's cooking for herself (but I'm sure it's tasty).  While at Twin Elms, they have floating island for dessert one night and now I need to look that up too.

Nancy's Mysterious Souvenir:  
Actually she doesn't get one in the RT.

Rating:  
Five stars for the OT because the underground stuff is SO GOOD, though the stuff with the servant woman makes me want to knock it down a star.  Four and a half stars for the RT because who doesn't love a haunted house mystery?  Though it would have been better if the underground passage stuff had NOT been revised.