The Secret of the Wooden Lady is the 27th book in the original Nancy Drew series written by – uh, “Carolyn Keene.” Of course, most readers of Nancy Drew know there were a number of people who wrote Nancy Drew, including Mildred Benson and about 27 other authors.
This is the eighth book of the original series I have read and at first, I wasn’t sure I liked it as much as a couple others.
It seemed a little discombobulated and was a little slow in the middle of the book after starting off with a bang (not a literal bang this time).
Most of the book took place on an old clipper that an elderly sea captain wants to buy, but can’t because the original title can’t be found. In addition to the deed being lost, the captain has been experiencing some weird events involving thefts on the ship as well as seeing what he fears might be ghostly figures.
Nancy knows about what Captain Easterly is dealing with because he knows her father, Attorney Carson Drew, — described in the book as tall and handsome — and Captain Easterly has written him a letter.
Carson wants to help the old man find out what is going on and invites Nancy to go with him to Boston and look for the title and find out if someone is prowling around on the clipper at night.
Nancy is excited about having another mystery to solve and while she waits for the next day when she and her dad will leave, she gets a call from her friend Bess. While she and Bess are on the phone, Bess says she hears someone in the house. Her parents aren’t home and she’s nervous. Suddenly the line goes dead and Nancy, appropriately, freaks out and runs to her car to go see what’s happened to Bess.
She tried to call the police before she left, but the lines were busy. This was the 1930s so I suppose that is a plausible situation.
I was freaking out for Bess when I read this part. It was late at night and I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed and when I read the part about the phone going dead I was like, “Oh my gosh! What happened to Bess!”
My daughter was very confused until I explained to her it was a character in the book I was reading.
You will have to read the book to find out what happened to Bess, but it is a bit of a spoiler to say that Bess and her cousin, and Nancy’s other friend, George, are invited up to Boston by Carson Drew when he has to leave the city to find out more information about the title and doesn’t want to leave Nancy alone. That’s pretty nice of him since he usually he doesn’t seem too worried about his daughter investigating things alone.
It doesn’t take too long for the girls to learn that what happened to Bess and her family might be related to what is happening aboard the clipper – The Bonny Scot.
Before Nancy had left for Boston she went to a dance with Ned Nickerson, by the way. Ned is her “boyfriend” but he’s not necessarily called that. He is the young man who clearly cares for her but she’s always too busy solving crimes. Ned is sad she’s running off to Boston because he was hoping to take her out again before he has to go off to his summer camp job.
Luckily, it turns out that Ned’s camp isn’t too far from Boston, so we end up with Ned and two of his friends – apparent love interests of Bess and George that might have been mentioned in previous books I haven’t read yet – arriving to help out with the mystery as well.
Like I said above, the middle of this book was a little slow but then things picked back up again and the girls were thrown into more dangerous situations than the characters on a CW show, which is saying a lot.
As always, the book is simply written with more “telling” paragraphs that move the reader along at a fairly fast and furious pace, but these books were originally written for younger readers so that is understandable.
While I liked this one, The Case of the Whistling Bagpipes remains my favorite of the ones I’ve read so far.
You can read reviews of three of the other books I’ve read here:
Book review/recommendation: Nancy Drew Mystery, The Secret at Red Gate Farm
