Nancy, Bess and George are stuck in a thunderstorm on their way home in Nancy's roadster. Two trees are struck by lightning before their eyes, which, wow. The conditions are so bad they seek shelter at a house advertising meals "at the sign of the twisted candles".

While freshening up before tea, the girls overhear the innkeeper scolding a waitress for bringing up a fine meal to the old man upstairs when a plate of mush would do as well. Nancy questions the girl and finds the waitress, an orphan taken in by the innkeeper and his wife, to be too finely bred to be doing heavy labor. There's a mystery afoot!

There's also the 100 year old man, Asa Sidney, working away in his tower room making candles and talking about his tragic past. Nancy and her friends insist on joining him for a birthday party with the young girl, Sadie. A fun time is had and Nancy asks that if Sadie or Asa need a good lawyer, to call on her father. It turns out, he does. The next day Nancy's father is called by Asa to draw up a new will. Asa Sidney made a lot of money with his inventions and, having no children, has many relatives who may have an interest in his property.

A low point for me was the revelation that the man was a near-distant relation to George and Bess and those two worthy girls are manipulated by their families to cut off Nancy Drew because of her interference with the will! I seriously thought it was just going to be a ruse, but it was an actual thing that happened and us readers are expected to believe. That element was even kept for the revision in the 1960s.

Doing a little digging about these novels I'm upset to find that there were 3-4 illustrations in addition to cover art originally attached to these books, but subsequent editions eliminated them to a single frontispiece, redrawn in a mid-century style. I have some earlier editions, but none of mine have any of this extra art. If you have time, search for the frontispiece for this one featuring a man about to push Nancy off a high ladder from a window! It's amazing.

Bess and George's defection aside, this book was exciting because of the extra depth provided to the secondary and tertiary characters - the friend of her father's brought in to witness Asa's will was so eager to be a part of a mystery it was great - and the extra lengths Nancy had to go to to solve the case. Highly recommended.

I've reached another gap in my Nancy shelf, so it may be some time before I continue.

Nancy Drew

Next: 'The Password to Larkspur Lane'

Previous: 'Nancy's Mysterious Letter'

An early stand-alone mystery from Carolyn Hart, that was originally bought by Harlequin and marketed as a gothic romance.  This is one of those stories that is best discovered by someone who hasn't already read a fair variety of romantic suspense.  With nothing to compare it to, one might find this a very lively and escapist story.

Leah arrives in South Carolina after the death of her paternal grandmother and Leah's subsequent discovery that she herself has been presumed dead since she was 2.  Wanting to find out why, and the truth about what happened to her parents, she arrives at the Devereaux Plantation full of questions, discovering she still has a maternal grandmother who is thrilled she's alive, and 3 cousins that might not be so thrilled.

This slim volume reads exactly like a Barbara Michaels in many respects.  Hart says in the introduction to this re-issue that she suddenly found herself in a market that had no interest in women writing murder mysteries, and after 9 years of rejection, found that she could sell her books if she made them romances.  This bow to contemporary demands is apparent in the romance: it's insta-love at it's most glaring, and more than a little bit naive and awkward.  

Sandwiched in between in the awkward romance is, unfortunately, only a slightly less awkward mystery, but knowing what I know about Hart's real mysteries, I have no problem believing it's because she had to cram it in along the edges.  It's a good mystery; just not one that was allowed the space to unfold naturally.

It's definitely nowhere close to Hart's normal standards of writing, but hints of what will come in her future Death on Demand series are evident: haunting atmosphere and fully fleshed out characters that are capable of passionate acts of love and cruelty.  

One of the weakest in the series, I think.  I liked the concept: preventing a murder taking place, but, well, for the first time, it feels to me that Hart has phone one in.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say a full 30% of this book consists of the repetition of plot summary in the form of multiple POV introspections.  The reader with the weakest of comprehension skills would have found this overkill and I was quick to lose patience with it.  The ultimate solution wasn't all that stunning a revelation either; and the justification for one of the murders (they're trying to prevent one, but there are others) was weak and felt tacked on in order to up the body count.

Also, as a general, series-wide aside - I don't ever want to read about Max Darling being Joe Hardy all grown up, ever again.  Hart's editors should ban her from continuing to abuse this nugget; it's always shown up in every book, but in this book no less than 3 times.  Please let it stop.

I'm sounding a bit snippy, but after 26 books any author is more than entitled to have one book that fails to live up to expectations; it's probably statistically probable.  But I do have to wonder how much longer she plans to keep our daring duo going.

Total pages:  246

$$:  $3.00

25 books in, and Hart still writes a fairly decent murder mystery.  

Annie is flying solo for the first time, as Max has gone fishing for a week, and even the three stooges (long-time recurring characters that include her mother-in-law, a best-selling island author, and Annie's best customer) are off cruising the Mississippi.  This group exodus allows Annie to work with her friend and island crime reporter Marian Kenyon, who has a very personal interest in the latest murder.

Hart is an excellent author, if at times a bit too emotional for my tastes, and most of the time disturbingly good at plotting a crime.  This is one of her few books where I was able to single out the murderer before the denouement, but her writing is so atmospheric and her characters are so vivid that knowing whodunnit doesn't ding my enjoyment of the story.  What did was the introspective angst and a morally questionable stunt at the end.  If it had been developed a little more carefully and allowed to build up naturally along with the story, it would have made an excellent springboard for a 'does the end justify the means?' discussion, but whether by design or by poor editing, it felt tacked on instead, leaving it firmly in the 'stunt' category.

After 25 books, I'm too heavily invested in this series to quit, but I'm crossing my fingers that the 26th will be a stronger showing.

Pages:  263

$$:  3.00

(Takes place on Broward's Rock Island - fictional island off South Carolina)