The Clue in the Iron Bird
The Mystery at Misty Lake
The Secret of Pudding Stone Lodge
Yes, there is a broken locket, and the picture on the front cover depicts the discovery of said locket, but the locket itself doesn't really prove to be that huge of a clue, or an important part of the story.
While we're finding bones to pick with the covers, by the by, this is the first cover that shows Nancy, Bess and George and--guess what?--Bess looks like she weighs EXACTLY the same as the other two girls. So, either she's got maybe 3-4 lbs. on Nancy and George, or the illustrators didn't want a chubby girl befouling the Nancy Drew book covers. Honestly, either way I'm kind of offended. If she only weighs a couple of pounds more than the slender Nancy and George, then why do they give her such a hard time? And, if it's the latter--I mean come ON. Just make her more "average" sized on the book cover. It wouldn't have killed them to put a girl with curves on the cover. May times throughout the novels, Bess is described in narration as "prone to being overweight" or as plus-sized. So just make her look that way! I mean, despite these apparently unseemly extra pounds, she still bags more dudes than any other girl in the book. Okay. [Releases breath.] Rant over.
Despite my issues with the cover, this one is really awesome. In fact, it might be my second 5/5. I'm having trouble deciding, so I'll let you know by the end of the review. The basic story starts with Carson Drew asking Nancy, Bess and George to go out to a summer resort in Maryland called Misty Lake to meet up with a girl who was set to stay at one of the cabins. The man who was set to meet this girl with the key had decreed that he would never set foot near the cabin again, due to semi-nightly apparitions of a ghostly turn-of-the-century raft that appeared on the lake, seemingly the spirits of those who drowned in a tragic accident in the early 1900's. Dude, they should just re-market the resort as a ghost experience. I would be all OVER that. Anyway so it looks like we've got an honest-to-goodness HAUNTING! Oh, yeah!!!
Except, no. Nancy is convinced that the images are being projected somehow. Splugh. I was hoping for a haunting but...Nancy is always right. Anyhow, the girls arrive at the cabin and see a red-headed girl. Assuming this is the girl they are set to meet, they greet her, but she runs away screaming something about how they can't take her babies. Whoosh. Crazytown: Population, this girl. But then a girl who looks nearly identical to the baby crazy nutjob shows up. Her name is Cecily and she is trying to find a clue to a long-lost family treasure so that she can marry her budding rock-star boyfriend Niko VanDyke (who is apparently the 1966 Justin Beiber). Ooooohh. We may not have a haunting, but it looks like we have a doppelganger!
Cecily says that the clue to her family's fortune may be hidden in a place on the lake called "Pudding Stone Lodge" in an iron bird. When Nancy and the girls investigate, they find an odd family of acrobats named the Driscolls (including two young twins who may very well be the "babies" in question). While one of the brothers in the family yell at Nancy and co. and tell them never to return, the other brother is super-unctuous and insists they come whenever they please. The solicitous brother goes so far as to buy an iron bird in town and claim they found the heirloom, but Nancy has of course remembered that she saw the fake bird for sale in the General Store. Nothing gets by Nancy Drew.
When she goes back into town to question the locals about the Driscolls and about the strange other red-haired girl, she discovers another mystery. It looks like the latest record by Cecily's fiance, Niko Van Dyke, is being pirated and sold throughout the state! Are the Driscolls perhaps acrobats AND kidnappers AND pirates? Spoiler alert: YES.
After many reconnaissance missions to Pudding Stone Lodge, Nancy and the girls (including Cecily) discover that someone is being held prisoner there, likely Cecily's double. They alert the police but are thwarted when the Driscolls trick the dull-witted Misty Lake police officers into thinking everything is a-ok. Not to be outdone, Nancy sneaks back in and finds proof that the Driscolls and their gang are responsible for the pirating business, the projected images of the ghostly launch to scare away snoopers, and, as it turns out, the kidnapping of the two young twins. The "babies" actually belong to the imprisoned doppelganger, a cousin of Cecily's named Susan Wayne. She and her husband were victims of a hit and run while camping with the children and the perpetrators (this book's requisite total a-holes, the Driscolls) took off AND helped themselves to the dying couple's children. Nancy is captured with Susan, but not for long as she brought backup: Bess, George, Ned, Burt, Dave and Justin Beib--er, Niko Van Dyke all show up with the totally useless Misty Lake PD. Fortunately, their guns and handcuffs aren't useless, and the Driscolls and their gang are arrested, spouting many Scooby-Doo like expletives about Nancy being a "no-good snooping kid" and such.
Susan has her children back, Cecily has a new family member and, after a search, both find the lost family treasure. Yayyyy! Oh yeah, and at one point they find a locket and I totally forget about it. Yayyyyy!
Alright, this one comes close. I really want to give it 4 3/4 mags because it's so close to perfect. But I admit the action of them going back and forth to the Pudding Stone Lodge gets a bit tired for, like, a microsecond. Well, since it's my blog, I guess I can give it whatever score I please. 4 3/4 out of 5 mags it is!
The oddest part is that this book was severely rewritten from one version to the next. So much so I had to google what my version was (the 1930s one) with the one above. Why did they change the entire plot? It wasn't bad actually... "When two adopted parents are unsuitable for caring of baby twins, Nancy sets out to search for the rightful birth mother with the help of a broken locket. "
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