The real mystery Nancy Drew has solved is the mystery of aging and she never even takes credit for it. In the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock, on page one we read “Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of eighteen, was driving home along a country road in her new, dark-blue convertible.” When we get to mystery number 64, Captive Witness, we see on page two “As he had so often done, Carson Drew was calling on the detective skills of his eighteen-year old daughter on behalf of one of his legal clients.”The Captive Witness is typical Nancy with the addition of complicated travel since after so many similar stories they Ms Keene has used up most of the available American settings. (The series is ghost written using that name so I guess one more mystery would be who really wrote it.) No matter they are in Austria the usual cast is there with here including Ned who is of course still a freshman at Emerson. I won’t spoil the surprise ending and let you keep wondering if Nancy solves the usual two mysteries per book.
