The Nancy Drew Project: Book #3: The Bungalow Mystery (1960 Edition)

Alright. I admit I was going into this one thinking that it was one of my least favorite of the Nancy Drew books. When I started reading, I realized I was remembering the first chapter and then some completely alternate story wherein Nancy is asked to care for this bratty rugrat named something like Trixie. Was this all a dream? Having taken a lot of heavy-duty antihistamines around the last time I truly committed to rereading all these books, I can't be sure.

In any event, this one was awesome. Nancy and her soon-to-be-married friend Helen Corning are vacationing (Ah, to have the Drew's disposable income...) in Moon Lake and get caught in a terrible storm. All seems lost for the two girls--seriously, for a moment you think the book will start with Helen Corning's death--when they are rescued by another teen girl. They take refuge in a lakeside bungalow (Hmmm...a bungalooooww) and discover that their savior, Laura Pendleton is in desperate need of some advice. Her mother recently passed away and her new guardians, the Aborns, make the Thenardiers from Les Miserables look like parents of the year. Nancy meets the guardians, who seem to be putting on quite an acting job, and leaves the girl with them, but her detective radar is definitely up.

Her suspicions are confirmed when the girl arrives on her doorstep, sobbing and claiming that her new parents locked her in her room and threatened her if she did not hand over her mother's jewels. Nancy heads back to Moon Lake on her own to do some heavy snooping, and her efforts are rewarded when she sees the nefarious Mr. Aborn sneaking around the woods towards a run-down cabin after nearly running her over in his foreign car. She sneaks in and discovers...this man was not the real Jacob Aborn. The crook, whose real name is Stumpy Dowd (What the...nevermind. I'm not even going to touch that one), has been posing as Laura's guardian but was really just trying to steal her mother's fortune.

Duh DUH DUUUHHH!

Nancy is promptly knocked out (head injury #2!) and tied up, waking to find ole' Stumpy standing over her and an unconscious Mr. Aborn, laughing about how he'd used the old man's money to buy himself a sleek foreign car. Each time the foreign car is mentioned--about sixteen times--I imagine it as the robot wrestler from Futurama yelling: "I'm not from around here! I have my own customs! Look at my craaaazzzzy passport!"

Despite a second traumatic brain injury, Nancy bounces back and gets out of her bindings. They realize that the crooks have been using the bungalow from the beginning of the story as a hideout, and make a mad dash to stop the ne'er do wells from stealing all of the Pendleton and Aborn money. The book ends with a dramatic car chase (and one additional head injury for Carson Drew) but, as per usual, Nancy comes out triumphant. Stumpy and the other no-good crooks sail off a cliff (because villains are always smoking and disobeying traffic signs) at the end, and all of the stolen money and jewels are recovered. Laura Pendleton is reunited with her real guardians, and they have boatloads of money again. Awwwwwww.

I give this one a 4 1/2 out of 5. Not only was the action great, but the mystery developed over time, and Nancy was even more fearless than usual.