Summer vacations as a kid were intricately linked with a stack of Nancy Drews and Enid Blytons (well, we didn’t have Cabot and Rowling back then!). I thought the sun shone out of Nancy’s every orifice…Ned Nickerson was my first non-dimensional crush…and I was content in the knowledge that come what may; the 18-year old, strawberry blonde, girl detective extraordinaire would emerge victorious in the end.At a book-fair recently, I came across the first Nancy Drew Mystery Story (The Secret of The Old Clock). It was going for a lark…I was feeling nostalgic…and so I picked it up. Hardbound with a smattering of pencil-drawings, it had language oh-so-propah…I couldn’t resist smirking.
If Nancy Drew was written today, she would have been a slick, cussing-at-regular-intervals, intense teenager. Gone would be the ‘oh-dear-I-seem-to-be-locked-in-a-van-surrounded-by-horrible-men’ reaction. She would not be a perfect-heroine but a more acceptable underdog. Ah well, those were the days…
As for the mystery itself, it revolves around the missing will of a deceased but wealthy man called Josiah Crowley. Finding the will is imperative if a bunch of deserving candidates are to benefit from it. So Nancy Drew is off….chasing robbers, dealing with snooty debutantes…warding off pretentious fortune-hunters…and finding a missing clock that could hold the key to the whole mystery. All this while being impeccably dressed, well-mannered and being blessed with brainwaves at the drop of a hat.
GO SUPERRR-NANCY!
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