56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - Nancy's Mysterious Letter

Week 8, Book 8

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 174 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1968

Original text publication date: 1932

My edition printed: approx. 1973

Ghostwriter: Walter Karig

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Setting: River Heights, Ridgefield, Emerson College, & (briefly) New York City

Originally published in 1932, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, published in 1968 and pictured above. This is the first of three books in this series that were written by Walter Karig. The other two are The Sign of the Twisted Candles and Password to Larkspur Lane.

Nancy Drew and her friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, are on their way to Nancy’s house after an overnight visit at Red Gate Farm. They notice the elderly mail carrier, Ira Nixon, struggling against the chill November wind. Ira thanks Nancy when she offers him a ride, but explains he has letters for every house on the block, including one for Nancy that has come all the way from London, England. Nancy tells Ira she will have a hot cocoa waiting for him when he gets to the Drew home and drives off wondering who could possibly be writing her from England!

Ira arrives, leaves his mailbag just inside the vestibule, and they all enjoy hot cocoa and Hannah’s homemade cookies. But when he goes to get Nancy her letter from his mailbag he finds all the letters have been stolen! Nancy and her friends run outside to look for the thief. They don’t see anyone. But noticing five-year-old Tommy Johnson playing on his tricycle, Nancy asks the little boy if he noticed anyone leaving her house. Well, what do you know? He did! Tommy not only gives Nancy a description of the man and his outfit, but also the colour and first four digits of his license plate. How convenient! 

Nancy gives Ira the description of the suspect and Ira collapses, because Nancy has just described his half-brother, Edgar, right down to his matching camel hair hat and coat. Hannah provides some background on Edgar Nixon. Ira lives in a small house that had belonged to his mother, who had outlived two husbands. When she died, she left the house and a little money to Ira. Edgar, who is thirty years younger than Ira, is demanding half of the money. So far, Ira had refused because the inheritance had actually been from Ira’s father. But Hannah worries that Ira is too old and weak to resist the obnoxious and intimidating Edgar for much longer. 

The stolen letters pose a lot of problems. Ira, who is less than two months away from retiring, is worried that the incident might put his pension at risk. One of Carson Drew’s clients has sent him payment in cash, despite his advice against the practice. And Nancy’s letter from London remains a mystery! Thank goodness, Ira noticed one of the names of the sender, which leads to discovering the law office the letter came from. A second letter is sent to Nancy, and when she sees that the law office is looking for a Nancy Smith Drew, regarding an inheritance, she knows it isn’t for her. But you had better believe she is going to find this Nancy and see that she gets her rightful inheritance!

From the start there is really no mystery as to who the baddie is. But the question throughout is what Edgar Nixon’s motive is and how he knew to take his brother’s mailbag on the day that he did.

In this one, Nancy finds a missing heiress and uncovers a Lonely Hearts Club that preys on lonely women by taking their money without even giving them the goods. The goods, being a husband for $100 paid in instalments of $25. (Umm… Don’t send cash in the mail no matter how convenient it is, or lonely you are, okay?) Nancy still has time to visit a friend in hospital, see a movie, go to church, go shopping, get the clasp of a necklace fixed, have a dress hemmed, reward two little boys on her street for their detective work, go to Emerson College for the weekend, see a play, a football game, attend a dance, go to church, again, all the while fitting in 13 meals, one snack of hot cocoa and cookies, and a slice of chocolate cake. 

Time of year

This book was a bit different from the others. If I hadn’t known that it wasn’t written by Mildred A. Wirt Benson, as all the other books have been thus far, then I would have wondered if a lot of changes had been made in revising the original text. Perhaps the most obvious difference is that this book isn’t set during the spring or summer months.

    Trudging along was an elderly mail carrier. He was lugging a heavy bag over one shoulder. His head was down and his eyes were almost closed agains the strong November wind that swirled leaves and dirt around him. (1)

This got me excited. Autumn and winter are my favourite seasons, as such, some of my favourite books are set in the colder months. I envisioned more descriptions of colourful leaves, crisp weather, and attractive outerwear. On just about all fronts I was to be disappointed. However, what we do get is a snowstorm. The effects of which we see in chapters 10 and 11 and then the weather is not mentioned again. But snow is snow. We’ve had so little of it this winter ourselves, that I’m willing to take what I can get!

    “It’s starting to snow,” Bess remarked as a few flakes hit the windshield of Nancy’s convertible.

Before leaving home, she had put the top up because the day was cloudy and raw, with a hint of stormy weather. (78)

Here we get some banter between Bess and George. Bess asks Nancy if her car  has snow tires. George accuses Bess of having little faith in people, because of course Nancy would have snow tires! Bess defends herself, but Nancy just laughs.

    “You girls have driven with me in snowstorms many times. Nevertheless I promise to be careful. Oh, it’s getting to be worse fast.” (78)

Is it just me, or did Nancy avoid answering the question? I mean, Nancy is always prepared no matter the circumstances, but she is driving a convertible in the winter, so she doesn’t always make the best choices. To give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe it’s a hard top!

The snow is deep in the outskirts of Ridgefield, where they are heading. A stalled “snow removal machine” blocks a road they want to do down, and they have to park on another street, trudging up a hill on a sidewalk that hasn’t been shovelled (79). By the time they get to their destination they are covered with snow. Thank goodness, they all had the foresight to wear boots!

    Bess suggested it would be easier to walk down the hill in the middle of the street rather than on the sidewalk.

    They had hardly started when a boy on a sled whizzed around the corner. The next second he skidded into Nancy.

    The impact knocked her sprawling into the snow. The bundle of letters flew from her hand and scattered in every direction. (87)

Nancy was fine after she sat down for a moment, and some good did come out of the experience. A couple of the letters had the contents sticking out, which provided evidence of a Lonely Hearts Club!

There is a long football scene, when Nancy and her friends visit Emerson College. The scene straddles chapters 15 and 16. And while it does create a collegiate atmosphere with Nancy and her new friend, Marian Wilson, cheering on their football player boyfriends from the stands, the scene does little to move the plot forward. For a scene that is unnecessary to the story one would think that it would at least have been well described. But there is no mention of the weather, Nancy’s outfit, or drinking hot chocolates to ward off the chill. I think that this was a missed opportunity. The trajectory of this scene is Ned having the wind knocked out of him, taking to the bench, and then recovering enough to make the winning play. I have to admit that the only thing that would have made the scene at all interesting for me is if Ned had been injured badly enough to be taken to hospital. Although, then we would have had to waste time with Nancy visiting him in hospital, and enough time was taken away from the mystery during the tedious game!

Timeline

This book is set over 10 days with no action taking place on the third day. This is pretty standard for the series so far. The Bungalow Mystery had the shortest timeline, being set over 6 days and very action packed days they were too! The Secret of Red Gate Farm fills the longest time frame. Set over a few weeks, this book is a bit slower, minus the climax, of course, but it feels like a more realistic amount of time to solve the mystery. In this one, I really had to suspend my disbelief when Nancy receives a replacement letter, for the one that was stolen, all the way from London, England in less than two days. Given the timing of the scenes it seems like the letter would have been mailed from London on Monday morning at the earliest and arrived in River Heights the next day. 

The long game

I remember really enjoying this book when I was little. I loved getting letters in the mail then, and still do! Getting a letter intended for someone else, but with almost the same name as you was such a exciting prospect! And the idea of tracking down the person and giving them the amazing news that they are to receive an inheritance from an uncle they didn’t know… That’s almost as thrilling as hearing you’re to receive an inheritance yourself! Well, almost.

Then, like now, I’m not keen on the Nancy and Ned storyline. Passages like the following annoy me.

    Nancy was torn between two desires. She hated to give up her pursuit of the other Nancy Drew. On the other hand, she would not miss seeing Ned play in this big and final game of the football season for anything. (125)

Nancy goes to the game, having committed to go with a friend whose boyfriend is also playing in the game. Taking time out for social activities is part of what makes Nancy a good detective and contributes to her sustainable work schedule. She knows having a social life is important and that solving mysteries shouldn’t come at the expense of leading a well-balanced life. I also think that Nancy deciding to go to the game is a way of showing that Nancy is a young woman who is able to have it all. She has a mystery to solve, as well as a steady boyfriend. 

However, I don’t want to have to read about a football game for most of two chapters and have Ned getting injured used as one of the end of chapter cliffhangers. Ned getting injured does not alter the main plot, and I have a hard time believing that anything, even Ned getting injured, would stand in Nancy’s way of solving the mystery. 

    As Nancy thought of an appropriate answer, she suddenly realized that this mystery which she had enjoyed so much was coming to a close. The young detective always felt a vacuum in her life when this happened. But the feeling was not to last long. In a short time she would be working on another case, Sign of the Twisted Candles. (173)

According to this, without a mystery to solve, Nancy feels like there is a vacuum in her life. A similar sentiment ends most of these books. The satisfaction in solving the mystery is quickly followed by a feeling of loss, of emptiness, even. I don’t think it is a stretch to assume that mysteries will always come first for Nancy. She took time out to go to Ned’s big game, but if there had been some time-sensitive clue to follow up on, Nancy would have made that her priority and Ned would have had to understand. I don’t remember Nancy ever having to make a decision like this, but I’ll be looking out for any cases of Nancy putting mysteries before social engagements as I continue on in the series.

Favourite quotations

I have a smorgasbord of favourite quotations from this book, but they each hinge on a particular word that made me giggle.

These first two are said by Nancy.

    Though Nancy tried over and over again to call the airline back, the wire continued to be busy.

    “Oh phooey!” she said to herself impatiently. (124)

Watch your mouth, young lady! Haha!

    “Perhaps Edgar Nixon is already married to somebody else who is in cahoots with him and is going to play the part.” (127)

If you have visited my blog before, you probably already know that I love the word “cahoots”!

And not to be outdone in the hilarious language department, my last favourite quotation for this week comes from Ned.

    “I don’t want to lose my girl to some kook. If you do come across Edgar Nixon while you’re alone, he may harm you.” (137)

A lot of these words, and others that I read for the first time in my Nancy Drew books, filtered their way into my vocabulary as a child. Is there a word or phrase from the Nancy Drew lexicon that particularly stood out to you?