It's Lethal Weapon, starring Nancy Drew and Co.!
Nancy is our requisite "loose cannon" a' la' Martin Riggs
Bess "I'm too hungry for this shit!" Marvin as Murtaugh
Except that Bess AND George aren't in this nearly as much as I wish they were. Again, while they appear from time to time, they are relegated to the "feminine" plots--in this case, doll shopping. The reason I liken this one to Lethal Weapon is because, much like the L.W. movies, an entire race of people is basically our villain. Gypsies.
Sure, there are a few clear villains throughout. A self-described "Gypsy King" who steals fortune-telling money from his tribe and a shrewd orange-haired woman named Nitaka. Actually, her hair is always described as "carrot-colored" so I will henceforth refer to her as Carrot Top. Throughout the book, the Romani are depicted as rude, shifty, superstitious, and crazeballs.
That's right. Crazeballs. Not Amazeballs or even Crazemazeballs. Crazeballs.
The story starts out with Nancy witnessing an older woman's purse being stolen (by a Gypsy, of course, despite the fact that the culture is also depicted as never intermixing with other people--a truer stereotype than most of ND's quaint racisms although I'm starting to suspect the era of some tribes' secrecy is waning, what with TLC's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and all. Anyhow, the older woman is this book's charity case, Mrs. Struthers, grandmother to an unruly and practically Gypsy-like granddaughter, Rose. Well, this is of course because Rose is half Romani. The stereotyping continues. Mrs. Struthers' daughter, Enid, married a Romani violinist, only to die of a broken heart (but probably cancer) when the man left her alone to raise their daughter. Mrs. Struthers wonders if Nancy can help her solve the mystery of a missing doll and the child's missing deadbeat dad.
What ensues is an uneven romp that attempts to make doll shopping interesting, which it's clearly not, so they throw in a bunch of really dramatic "gypsy spookiness." My family has Romani blood, but we're just really good traveling companions. Must the stereotypes reach such epic levels here?
YES, by the by, is the answer to this. In one example totally befitting the term "crazeballs," Nancy and Ned go to the carnival and end up buying tickets to a live screening of TLC's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding! Oh, but not. It's a fourteen year old child bride being married off to a middle aged man, who gives her a doll to symbolize the fact that, even though she is marrying him, she is still a child. Um, do I need to switch to RIVER HEIGHTS: CRIMINAL SUSPICIONS format?
[clang clang!]
Nancy Drew: Looks like we've got ourselves a regular sex traffic jam.
Ned Nickerson: (shaking head) Sick bastard...
Alright, that's enough. But seriously, the concept of child brides gives me what can only and forever be described as the heebie jeebies.
Nancy eventually discovers Rose's not-so-deadbeat-dad, who was being held captive by the tribe, and finds the missing doll which, in an odd turn, has some kind of magic curative power. Ugh. I seriously don't love when Nancy Drew books never cop to real hauntings but seem to love fetishized mysticism, much like the final scene in The Mystery of the Ivory Charm which I still say is too stupid to summarize.
At the very end, when the Romani tribe is trying to escape with Rose, her father, and Nancy, the wagons are stopped by the police with Carson, Bess, and George. The Gypsy King and Carrot Top chortle at the authorities. "Muhaahahaaa!" they cry. "Diplomatic immunity!" but then Bess shoots them both with a .45 and says: "HAS BEEN REVOKED." She then slowly shakes her head and says: "Damn. I'm too hungry for this shit."
Okay, so that didn't really happen. Nor were Bess and George present. Unfortunately.
This book was not nearly so disappointing as Ivory Charm, but it wasn't great either. I found that my favorite parts centered around Ned Nickerson, who is clearly growing desperate to show Nancy how he feels. At one point, Nancy jokingly asks Ned if he wants his fortune told, and he tells her his future is pretty much set: he'll "go into business, prosper, and marry a certain ambitious young lady named..."
Omigod! Is it NANCY DREW?!
Well, of course it is, but she cuts him off before he can say it, leading them into My Big Fat Chi-Mo Wedding.
Frakkin' Nancy! Wake up and smell the eligible bachelor! I know you're not ready to get married at eighteen, which is fine, but throw him a damn bone, would you?!
So, this one gets a 2 out of 5 mags. This has been a fairly uneven review but, to be fair, it was an uneven story.
No comments:
Post a Comment