56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - Password to Larkspur Lane

Week 10, Book 10

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, 175 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1966

Original text publication date: 1933

My edition printed: approx. 1977

Ghostwriter: Walter Karig

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Patricia Doll

Setting: River Heights & Sylvan Lake

Originally published in 1933, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of Password to Larkspur Lane, published in 1966 and pictured above. This is the third of three books in this series that were written by Walter Karig. The other two are Nancy’s Mysterious Letter and The Sign of the Twisted Candles.

Nancy is picking larkspurs from her garden while chatting with Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ faithful housekeeper, when they hear a plane engine stall overhead. A wounded bird tumbles to the earth, landing amongst the flowers (1). Nancy identifies the bird as a homing pigeon and noticing a tiny metal tube attached to the bird’s leg, wonders if it is carrying a message (1). Just when it seems like the stalled plane is at risk of crashing into the house, the engines catch and the plane flies away, but not before Nancy has had a good look at the tan and black machine, with a winged horse painted on the side (2). That is a close look!

It turns out that the bird is carrying a message, and a strange one at that. “Trouble here. After five o’clock blue bells will be singing horses. Come tonight” (2). Nancy can’t make head or tail of it, but the fact that it sounds both urgent and mysterious has her interest peaked. She sends a telegram with the identification number from the pigeon’s leg ring to the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers (who even knew there was such a thing?!), before rushing off with her arrangement of larkspurs to the annual charity flower show (3-4). 

On the way home, she passes an old car parked with leaves over it on the side of the road. She can’t see inside, but it has out of state plates and the four digits of the plate that aren’t covered in mud are the same as the ones on the pigeon’s leg ring (7). Surely, that’s just a coincidence! (Hold onto your hat. There are a lot of those ahead.) Then she passes family friend, Dr. Spire, the famous bone specialist, going the other way. Oddly, he pulls off the road by the parked car, and is suddenly whisked into the other car almost as if he was kidnapped (8). Nancy turns around and investigates the doctor’s car, and finding it locked, assumes the doctor must have expected to meet someone. Still, the whole thing seems a bit strange. When she returns home, there’s a reply telegram from the Pigeon Fanciers association. “LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE WILL CALL. BIRD NOT REGISTERED. SUSPECT TROUBLE. KEEP MESSAGE SECRET” (9).

The next day, just after getting her bag stolen, Nancy runs into Helen Archer née Corning. (Helen! We haven’t seen you since The Mystery at Lilac Inn!) It seems Helen’s grandparents are having a spot of trouble at their new home on Sylvan Lake and would Nancy visit the couple and see if she can sort it out for them? With two mysteries in two days, what’s a girl to do? Work twice as hard to solve them, of course!

In this one, Nancy finds a missing woman, blows the lid off a phoney sanitarium that preys on old women, and stops a gang of thieves. She still has time to enter a flower show, and take home first prize in the delphinium category, take Hannah to the doctor, chase a purse snatcher, watch a “television play”,  research larkspurs, take a load off while listening to her favourite “musical program”, crack a mysterious message, nurse a pigeon back to health and follow it to its home loft, discover the history behind a family crest, sneak out the back way to evade the baddies, get a shiny new convertible (thank you, Dad!), save a little girl from drowning/getting hit by a motor boat, go swimming, scour the countryside for larkspurs and bluebells, go to a dance at a country club, go to church, watch a swim meet, participate in an impromptu diving competition, and get offered a job as a camp counsellor as a result, turn the job down because she already has one, go undercover as an old lady, climb out of a cistern with the help of a single nail, put two cars and one plane out of commission, and eat 18 meals, including one of hers and her father’s favourites, hot biscuits and chicken.

Time of year

This is the tenth book in the series and by my count, it’s the ninth book to be set during the spring and summer months. We don’t get any specific references to what month it is, but it seems to be another one that is set around late June, early July.

Our first indication of the time of year comes at the very start of the novel. Nancy is out in the garden cutting larkspur to take to the annual charity flower show held in River Heights.

    Nancy Drew paused on the flagstone path of her garden in front of a border of beautiful larkspur. For a moment the attractive titan-haired girl of eighteen watched the tall blue plumes waving in the breeze. (1)

 

So we know larkspur is in bloom and that it is well enough along in the growing season to hold the annual flower show.

There are also other references to flowers. 

    Nancy halted the car beside a stone wall over which honeysuckle tumbled. (59)

    In the middle of the block was a yard full of bluebells. (86)

    A dozen yards ahead the trees ended. Just beyond was a high wire-mesh fence. Inside it grew a long border of exquisite tall larkspur. (107)

And there are also two non-botanical clues as to what time of year it is. When Nancy calls Bess to invite her and George to join her at the Cornings’ house on Sylvan Lake, Bess give a “whoop of delight”.

    “I just finished talking to Dave. He and Burt are going to that very lake as camp counselors. It happened suddenly, when three old counselors dropped out. You’ll probably hear from Ned soon.” (64)

Likely, the young men are not being hired midseason, but before camp has begun. I think, three counselors dropping out in the middle of the summer would be too much of a coincidence even for a Nancy Drew novel.

 

Another indication of the time of year is provided when Mrs. Eldridge explains that her husband is in Richmond, Virginia, searching for his aunt.

“She has been missing since early spring. Our aunt is a very wealthy woman, rather eccentric at times. Several months ago she disappeared from her home, leaving a letter.” (79)

The woman went missing in “early spring”, so that would likely mean sometime in late March or early April. And “several months” would most likely mean three or more, making it at least late June to early July when this conversation is taking place.

Timeline

This novel is set over nine consecutive days, running from Monday through to the following Tuesday. Although, the final 33 percent of the book takes place during that last Tuesday. Nancy really knows how to pack in her days! The compressed time frame creates a sense of urgency in the final third of the book and makes for very addictive reading.

The Case of Too Many Coincidences

There is no such thing as coincidence. Well, there is in most of the Nancy Drew books, and you really have to suspend your disbelief with this one. This story relies heavily on coincidence, and I would say, more so than most Nancy Drew books, which is saying something! The coincidences range from necessary clues that fall in Nancy’s lap, to unnecessary incidents that did not need to happen the way they did, but I imagine made for very swift and easy plotting. I’m looking at you, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams! 

Let’s whip through some of these coincidences. 

An injured bird drops into Nancy’s yard when she happens to be outside (1). We can forgive this one coincidence, as perhaps Nancy was outside gardening all afternoon and had not just gone outside to cut flowers for the flower show. But many of the plot points after this point are a bit insane.

Nancy knows of the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers and thinks to contact them with the pigeon’s identification number. Of course, she knows the number will be registered with the association and they will be able to put her in touch with the pigeon’s owner (3). 

On the way home from the flower show, Nancy takes “a little-traveled shortcut” in an effort to get home quickly because she is eager to see if there is a reply to the telegram she sent off (7). She happens to pass by a partially covered car with the license plate number partially disguised with a smear of mud, but the four digits visible just happen to correspond to the number on the pigeon’s leg ring (7).

Then Nancy recognizes a family friend, Dr. Spire, drive past going the other way and spots from her rearview mirror that he disappears into the backseat of the suspicious car, which then speeds away with the doctor inside (8).

Not long after arriving home, Hannah falls on the cellar stairs and injures her back, prompting Nancy to take her to none other than Dr. Spire’s office (11).

Dr. Spire isn’t back yet and his wife is getting dinner ready, so she leaves them in the waiting room with the request that Nancy answer the office phone, if it rings. Of course, the phone does ring and Nancy receives a mysterious message that contains the words “blue bells”(12), just like the message in the pigeon was carrying (2)!

Phew! That’s a lot of coincidences and we haven’t yet reached the end of chapter two. I had an idea in mind that I would list all of the coincidences in this book, but I think I have made my point. I’ll just add the two coincidences that I found completely unnecessary and that I believe could have been altered to be more believable without wrecking havoc with the plot.

Just after Nancy has chased a purse snatcher through a department store, Nancy and Helen run into each other in the street. Just the person Helen wants to meet!Lucky Helen! (I seem to only run into people I don’t want to see!) I think this could have worked just as well if Helen had been waiting at the Drew home when Nancy arrived home, or even called Nancy up on the telephone.

The other coincidence that I believe is unnecessary, occurs when Nancy calls Bess up to ask if her and George would accompany her to Sylvan Lake to stay with Helen’s grandparents. Then we find out that the young men Nancy, Bess and George are all dating have just been hired as camp counsellors on the same lake (64). How incredible! They could have been working at a camp on a lake close by without altering the plot. And instead of canoeing up to the young women at the Cornings’ dock (80), the boys could have driven up in a camp vehicle and surprised their dates that way. They could have even brought a picnic lunch to make the surprise even more delightful!

What makes this book special?

This is the third and final book in this series that was written by Walter Karig. I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by Walter Karig’s contribution to the world of Nancy Drew. I have read a few disparaging remarks about the Nancy Drew books written by Walter Karig. I grant you, these books do have their issues. In this one, as discussed above, there are too many coincidences. And at times Nancy seems not just privileged, but spoiled. However, there are things that make these books stand out in a good way too.

If you read the post before this on The Sign of the Twisted Candles you know that I appreciate Walter Karig’s ability to create a sense of atmosphere through his descriptions of settings and the characters that inhabit those spaces. We see similar examples in this book too. I especially enjoyed the scene where Nancy and Hannah’s niece, Effie, follow the pigeon back to its home loft. With Effie, frightened and hiding in the trunk with the lid slightly ajar for fresh air, Nancy makes her way along the road with the prospect of facing a gang of kidnappers solo (59-60).

    Nancy slipped behind the wheel again and turned off the little-used, sandy road onto a well-kept gravel driveway. It swept in a great curve toward a long rambling white house.

    Nancy drove nearly a quarter of a mile. Then the path dipped under the trees, and Nancy saw that the house was a mansion. Whoever occupied it must be very wealthy. White columns supported the overhanging roof of a porte-cochère.

    The young sleuth did not stop there, but headed toward the outbuildings, to the far right of it. She pulled up in front of a stable.

    Quietly Nancy got out of the car. Her sweeping glance took in a nearby shed and a large coop beside it containing a number of pigeons. On the roof rested the pigeon Nancy had been following.

    The yard was empty. Except for the cooing and flutterings of the birds, the place was silent. Was it deserted? Nancy wondered.

    Suddenly she was startled by a noise that sounded like a pistol shot. She whirled. In the shadow of the stable doorway stood a dark, thin-faced man wearing a riding habit. He carried a long, knotted, leather whip which he cracked again.

    With an unpleasant grin, he said, "Scared you, didn’t I?” (60)

Nancy acts as cool as a cucumber in this scene, but I can tell you for a fact that he certainly scared me! There are many other examples in this book and the others written by Walter Karig, where he describes the setting in vivid detail and then places the character in the scene like the final brush stroke on a masterpiece. 

Favourite character

Hannah’s niece, Effie, fills in as housekeeper at the Drew home when Hannah is laid up in bed with a back injury. When we are first introduced to Effie she is wearing a pink kimono and high-heeled satin mules, while munching on a banana. All I have to say is that I wish Effie played more of a role in this book. I couldn’t get enough of the fun, lighthearted, movie star obsessed seventeen year old who is a surprisingly good cook. Just before the above scene, Nancy arrives home to find Effie, hair topped with a pink bow, whistling in the kitchen. Moments later, the injured pigeon gets loose, in part due to Effie’s ineffectual efforts to help capture it.

    Nancy grabbed Effie's hand. "Come on!" She pulled Effie toward her car, which was parked near the front door. "I'll drive. You watch for the bird. We must follow it!"

    Flustered, Effie climbed in beside Nancy, taking off her apron and chattering apologies.

    "Don't talk! Just watch," Nancy said crisply.

    Effie, clutching her pink bow to keep it in place, gazed skyward. "There he goes!" (57)

The image of Effie, flustered by the situation yet still taking off her apron and keeping her bow in place, really stuck with me. She certainly cut a comical figure climbing into the trunk of Nancy’s car! Then when the man with the whip shows signs of getting rough with Nancy, it’s Effie’s hysterical giggling that distracts the man long enough for Nancy to speed away. Effie is a breath of fresh air, providing a dash of comic relief just when things are starting to get a bit scary.

Effie will go down as one of my favourite characters in the Nancy Drew books. I would love to read the original text edition of this one to see if Effie plays a bigger part in the story. Do you have any favourite supporting characters from this series?