Sleuthing Saturdays (02)

A few months ago I decided I want to buy every single Nancy Drew book published…and read them all. In order. Guys, this is a more lofty goal than you might realize. There are over 530 Nancy Drew books published right now, and that’s not including all the whackadoodle crossover books and what not. I made a spreadsheet detailing my efforts (which you can see here). You can also see my initial post about this literary adventure here.

As you can see, I have quite a few (although I have not finished counting up all the ones I have currently because counting is hard), so I thought I’d go ahead and start reading them in order!

Next up…

The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene

Title & Author:
The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene
Series and Number:
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #2
Original Publication Date:
April 29, 1930

Teenage detective Nancy Drew uses her courage and powers of deduction to solve the mysterious happenings in an old stone mansion. – Goodreads

Previously on Sleuthing Saturdays I talked about The Secret of the Old Clock. To recap, it was good but kind of just full of coincidences rather than actual sleuthing and oh yeah, Nancy Drew is kind of a prissy pants.

But guys, The Hidden Staircase is so much better! I really, really enjoyed it and it flew by much quicker than The Secret of the Old Clock. For one thing, I didn’t want to shove Nancy Drew in the mud. She was seriously obnoxiously perfect in The Secret of the Old Clock. But in The Hidden Staircase wasn’t as focused on her perfectly blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes (I should have done a drinking game for the amount of times Nancy Drew’s eyes twinkled or sparkled in The Secret of the Old Clock).

I also felt like Nancy Drew actually did more in The Hidden Staircase. Rather than driving to a bunch of different places and meeting people who told her where to drive to next, Nancy Drew investigated and searched for clues and knocked on wood panels and made chandeliers shake and what not.

I mean, I’m not going to lie, I totally saw it all coming from the very first few pages, but I had so much fun watching Nancy Drew and Helen figure it all out.

All in all, The Hidden Staircase was much improved from The Secret of the Old Clock. Stay tuned next week as I solve The Bungalow Mystery! What’s so mysterious about this bungalow? What is a bungalow anyway? Find out on the next edition of Sleuthing Saturdays!

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