This week I decided to list villains from books I’ve read and some from books I haven’t yet read (and might never read. Ha!)
Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I have read one book featuring Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, but not the short story yet. I have also seen him portrayed in at least two TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
2. Captain Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Of course Captain Hook from J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan has to be on this list. I have read some of Peter Pan and watched, of course, the adaptations, specifically the Disney one and Hook. Dustin Hoffman pulled off a brilliant performance as Hook in that one
Editorial use only
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Snap/Shutterstock (390884jm)
FILM STILLS OF ‘HOOK’ WITH 1991, ACTION, AGAINST-ALL-ODDS (SWASHBUCKLER, FANTASY, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, STEVEN SPIELBERG IN 1991
VARIOUS
3. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Hello…what is more evil than a wizard who wants to rule the world? A devil who wants to rule it, but you know what I mean.
4. Count Dracula from Dracula by Bram Stoker
We’ve had way too many kids’ movies that have tried to turn Dracula into a funny, relatable good guy. I’ve never read the book, but from what I understand about it — he was not a good guy. Not at all.
5. Voldemort from The Harry Potter series
Another evil wizard who wants to take over the world, but most of all destroy poor Harry Potter. I have not read the books but I did read part of the first on my own and with my kids and watched the movies with them as well.
6.Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
I have never read this book and most likely won’t but I did watch the movie with my husband.
7. Eleanor Shaw from The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
I have not read the book but I watched the 1962 movie with Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Shaw and … shudder…she was super creepy. I can’t get into too much about why she is so evil so I don’t ruin the book or movie for you. Just know she’s scum.
8. The White Witch (Jadis) from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Creepy to a fault, Jadis likes to tempt little boys with Turkish delight to drag all the secrets out so she can find and kill his siblings and keep her chilly hold on all of Narnia. She is, of course, a symbol of Satan, or at least one of his minions. I have read the books she is in (The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) and have seen one movie with her in it.
9. M. Hercule Flambeau from The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton
This conniving burglar is always trying to get by Father Brown who is always hot on his tale. I’ve read one short story with him and have seen him in the modern version of the show. He’s quite handsome in that show too but aren’t all the best villains a bit handsome?
10. Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton (and …hello….the BIBLE)
I have not read Paradise Lost but I have read the Bible and if you want to get technical about it, Satan is the basis for all the villains we have listed here.
This summer I have been watching movies that Angela Lansbury starred in or co-starred. This week I watched my last movie for this particular event.
Up next will be Comfy, Cozy Cinema for autumn with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. The list of movies we are watching is at the bottom of this post.
On Wednesday, I decided the movie I had picked all the way back at the beginning of this marathon wasn’t really something I was interested in at all. I had not looked the movie up or watched anything about it before I picked it and I should have. So, instead, I decided to cap off my Angela Lansbury movie watching marathon with a TV movie from the show that made her a household name — Murder, She Wrote.
When Murder, She Wrote was canceled in 1996, Angela Lansbury and loyal fans of the show were heartbroken. Lansbury was also angry and disappointed. One thing that soothed the shocking blow was when CBS agreed to make a series of TV movies featuring the character to appease Lansbury and fans.
Sadly, none of the movies took place in Cabot Cove with the original cast, but they at least featured Angela as Jessica.
The last of those movies, The Celtic Riddle, which I chose to watch for this week, aired in 2003.
I thought it was interesting that Angela’s son, Anthony Shaw, was the director and producer for all four of the films. This movie was also dedicated to the memory of Peter Shaw, Jessica’s husband, who died that same year. I thought it was also interesting that Amazon just put the movie up this past week. Perfect timing for me!
Here is a bit of description from online: Intrepid investigator Jessica Fletcher travels to Ireland to attend the reading of an old friend’s will, but a series of murders which follow have the police baffled. Jessica realizes that the will contains clues to the whereabouts of a secret treasure, as well as pointing to the real killer.
In the beginning of the movie, Jessica arrives at a mansion in a taxi and then rushes inside to the will reading. She sits down and receives several glares from the others in attendance. It’s clear she is not welcome but we don’t know yet why or even who the people are.
We slowly begin to learn about the family as a man gives his last will and testament on a video on a TV at the front of the room. The man has an Irish accent and it’s soon clear we — er, Jessica I mean — is now in Ireland.
There is a woman wearing sunglasses who looks sour, another sour-looking woman next to her, a free-spirited girl with a tortoise, a youngish man with spiked hair who is glaring, another young man, an older man who is drinking from a flask, a nervous-looking housekeeper, and another man who is sort of plain.
Each of those people will later either become suspects or victims after the man who passed away — Eamon Byrne — has his lawyer give each of them an envelope with a clue inside that will lead them to a treasure. His hope seems to be that they will work together to find out the meaning of the clues. That will be hard to do when each person seems to have a gripe against another person in the group.
The people in the room, it turns out, are his lawyer, his two daughters, his one daughter’s (Breeta’s) boyfriend, a man who wants to be Breeta’s boyfriend, a drunk man, and the housekeeper (Nora).
They will all have to join forces to find the treasure but before that can happen people in the group start dropping like flies. The saddest murder to me was the last one but I won’t spoil why.
Jessica isn’t very welcomed by the family and she especially isn’t welcome when Eamon leaves her Rose Cottage for once saving his life when he was visiting Cabot Cove. This is a small cottage on the property but not the main house, which his called, fittingly, Second Chance.
The problem is that Breeta (Sarah Jane-Potts) is living in Rose Cottage to be away from her money and power-hungry family members. While she’s at first hostile toward Jessica for being given the cottage, they eventually become friends as they try to figure out Breeta’s father’s riddle and who is killing people off.
An aside: The little cottage reminded me of the house my elderly friend Rev. Reynolds and his wife Maud lived in. Rev. Reynolds built his home to look just like an Irish cottage since he was from Northern Ireland. It was so cozy and warm. I loved visiting them there (except when he had another project for me) It brings tears to my eyes to think of it and the memories there. I’m so glad another couple is living there now and keeping the cozy feel of it alive. I need to go visit them soon since I met them through Rev. Reynolds.
Anyhow…back to the show:
The lead inspector in this movie, by the way, was quite amused by Jessica’s suspicions and deductions after the first murder. He looked like he was about to burst into laughter as she laid out her theory.
He seemed to think it was super cute that this old lady mystery writer thought the man might have been hit on the head. I really liked the actor — Timothy V. Murphy. I thought he played the part perfectly. I felt like he was saying in his mind, “Aw..she’s so cute. The mystery writer thinks she knows how to solve a real crime.”
(Excuse the reproduction here – it’s from my computer because there were not a lot of images online from the movie.)
Of course he had to eat his words when it turned out she was right and from then on, he treated her gently and seemed to want to take care of her and also believe every theory she had.
This video is also from my laptop so not the best reproduction:
The Irish accents in this were on point which made me look up the actors to see if they were actually Irish. With names like Cyril O’Reilly, Timothy Murphy, and Fionnula Flanagan how could they not have been Irish? I didn’t have time to research each actor but most of them did seem to actually be Irish and from Ireland.
I did recognize Fionnula Flanagan, but I’m not sure from what. I must have seen her in something or other, though. It will come to me eventually.
As in any Murder, She Wrote episode there were moments where I was like, “Well, that was a stupid move!” Like at one point Jessica runs out the door in the middle of her and Breeta and Breeta’s boyfriend, Paddy, (Cyril O’Reilly) brainstorming who the murderer is and she just says, “Wait here. I’m going to check something out.”
I literally said to the screen: “Jessica! Tell them where you are going! You can’t just run off places alone. That’s dangerous and you’re an old lady now!”
That’s the thing about these mystery shows —someone is always doing something dumb and the characters and us viewers just shrug it off like it is normal — well, after we yell at them of course. *wink*.
Also, Breeta’s boyfriend looked waaay too old for her. Like he could have been her dad old. When I looked up the actors, he was indeed 20 years older than her. Ick.
I feel bad in some ways, that Angela Lansbury, an Oscar-nominated actress, chose to be in these movies. They apparently didn’t have much of a budget because the rocks in the one scene were so clearly fake. Like plastic or Styrofoam fake. Eeek. Angela Lansbury loved Murder, She Wrote, though, and she liked the escape it gave people so I know that’s why she agreed to do them. I like watching the reruns for the same reason. She really gave us a gift by playing Jessica, even is she knew it wasn’t always “great TV” exactly.
Excuse the reproduction here – it’s from my computer because there were not a lot of images online from the movie.
Despite all those weird little quirks and fake rocks in the movie, the story itself and the acting wasn’t too bad.
I will say I guessed the killer about ten minutes into the show because of his expressions (smiling and five seconds later frowning menacingly) but the mystery may be harder for you. They did a good job of dropping red herrings throughout the show to distract me and others, though.
I don’t know that I’d watch this again and again or even … again once, but it was a fun little escape, much like the show. I think this autumn I might watch the other movies and see what I think of those too.
But for now, this is the end of my Summer of Angela.
If you’d like to read what I thought of the other movies I chose you can find the links to them here:
If you were to ask me which ones from this list were my favorites I’d have to say Gaslight and The Manchurian Candidate. The biggest surprise for me was The Pirates of Penzance and the films that made me forget Angela as Jessica Fletcher was The Manchurian Candidate followed by A Life at Stake and then The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Up next, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching movies for Comfy, Cozy Cinema. Yes, we do know those two words are pretty much the same word and, no, we don’t care if that bothers anyone. *wink*
Here is the list of what we will be watching and the dates we will be writing about those movies:
You can also find impressions of movies we watched in the past Comfy, Cozy Cinemas HERE.
Have you ever seen this TV movie? What did you think of it?
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I made a comment to someone in the comment section last week that the bear I saw on our back porch, and purchased a Ring camera to keep an eye on, probably would never show again.
How wrong I was.
The other night the dog was barking crazily outside. She is hooked up on a lead and I periodically walk back to check on her. Now we have a Ring camera that I can turn on and watch from my phone, but I didn’t because, well, I really didn’t think anything would happen.
The only thing that might happen is she might take off after a skunk like she did last weekend, yanking the stake to her lead out of the ground and disappearing behind our shed where she, and our son, was sprayed by a skunk.
That’s what I thought would happen anyhow but as I headed toward the back door I turned on the Ring camera from my phone and before I even looked down at it, I was at the back door looking out at Zooma face to face with a black bear, ten or twelve feet from our back door.
Zooma was barking bouncing back and forth in front of the bear, who looked quite confused honestly. I called Zooma back with a tremble in my voice, worried the bear might reach out and take out a swipe at her.
Luckily, Zooma barked a few more times but then came to me and I quickly opened the door and let her in while the bear continued to look confused.
This video does not do justice to how close the bear was to the house because of the angle of the camera. I left the audio in even though I sound like I’m crying, which I really wasn’t, but I was nervous and recovering from the virus we had so my voice sounded pretty shaky. I was just worried Zooma was going to get smacked around.
As the bear turned to leave, The Husband and I noticed he or she was limping, which was so sad to me.
I couldn’t film any longer because the bear was headed toward my neighbor’s backyard and sometimes they are out watering their garden late at night, so I wanted to warn her.
We did contact the game warden and they said they’d send someone out, but we never heard anything back. Hopefully, next week someone will update us on the condition or location of the bear.
Seeing the bear has made me very nervous but really it is a little silly to be afraid of the bear. They are black bears and aren’t really huge fans of people. They also aren’t known to attack people or, usually, pets. They simply come down looking mainly for food and our one neighbor has food out for the animals (yes, I’m pretty sure this is illegal and if not it is at least dangerous!). If you make loud noises or have a barking dog they tend to leave.
Still, I don’t relish the idea of stepping outside of my house and finding myself face to face with one.
That was the exciting part of our week. The rest of the week was spent being up weird times of the night while Little Miss coughed a lot from sinus drainage left over from the virus we had earlier in the week. We spend our days napping and trying to catch up from the weird sleep the night before.
We are still trying to recover from all of that and from the lack of sleep.
This next week I am actually going to start school for Little Miss. I wanted to do it the last couple of weeks but with being sick and recovering, that went out the window.
I have all of Little Miss’s curriculum so there is no excuse to not just get started. I’m looking forward to the upcoming year, especially art and literature, which are her and my favorite subjects.
I am still reading the same books, for the most part, but I am making progress. I finished The Scarlet Pimpernel last night. I enjoyed the book, even more so than the 1970s movie with Jane Seymour, but the ending did seem quite sudden to me. I would have liked a little more of a wrap up.
I am still reading Dave Berry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry. It is a collection of his columns for the Miami Herald and they are so funny.
I did not read any from Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse last week but I will be back into that this week. The Jeeves books are so funny.
I was very excited to receive a delivery this week from Thriftbooks that included two P.G. Wodehouse books, one of them a Jeeves book.
The books are Very Good, Jeeves and A Damsel in Distress. I am gathering that A Damsel in Distress is not a Jeeves book, based on the title and the description on the back, which is fine with me. I am interested in trying Wodehouse’s other books.
The order also included Nancy Drew books Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, The Whispering Statue, and The Triple Hoax, Remains to be Seen by Elizabeth Caldell, An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer, and Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan.
I am looking forward to reading Nancy Drew: The Triple Hoax soon but first I am going to read the Nancy Drew Mystery Password to Larkspur Lane.
Little Miss is reading The Clue of the Missing Diary by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew).
The Boy is reading/listening to Red Tithe by Robbie MacNiven.
The Husband is reading. That’s all I know right now because I forgot to ask which book he is reading. I know he finished Targeted: Beirut by Jack Carr about a week ago.
This week I watched Murder She Wrote, The Picture of Dorian Gray, episodes of Canal Boat Diaries, and a movie called Raffles, which ended terribly.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I shared on my blog yesterday about my black bear incident on my back porch. I’ll copy what I wrote here:
This past week was interesting if only for one thing that happened to me — something I knew would happen one day, but luckily it wasn’t as dramatic as I worried it would be.
I don’t have any photos, but it finally happened — I went out to my back door to get my cats in, and there was a black bear on the back porch. A black bear. Yes. Maybe three feet away from me but luckily there was a glass door between us.
I thought I was seeing a reflection on my door or just a shadow, and then the shadow moved! It hopped off the porch and took off across the yard while my cat watched from the other side of the yard, apparently amused by how I gasped, slammed the door shut and locked it (because the bear was clearly going to open it again) and then tried to get Little Miss to come see it by gasping. “Bear. Bear. Little Miss. See. Come.”
It was gone before she got there, sadly.
The Husband and The Boy were both upstairs so I couldn’t call for them.
We are now investing in a ring camera so I can get a better look before any of us step out there from now on.
I did a search on Facebook in a group that focuses on bear sightings in our area to see if anyone had seen our bear and learned that bear sightings are up. One reason they are up is because the state game commission has changed the weigh-in locations for bears when they are hunted. This means hunters aren’t as interested in hunting bears. They have to drive them too far to weigh them. Since the bears aren’t being as hunted as much, there is more of them. More of them means more of them are wandering into backyards and small towns.
Hopefully, we can keep ourselves and the bears safe. In most cases bears leave as soon as they see a person and we’re lucky that black bears aren’t like their grizzly bear cousins who sometimes do attack people (but probably rarely).
A couple of quick reminders:
I have a monthly book-related link party if you are interested. You can find the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page or here. It is for posts about books that you are reading, have read, book reviews — just anything book-related.
We will be holding another one in August, but I am not sure when yet.
The Crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on (usually from about 1 to 3 p.m. EST US time). No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.
If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.
Last week I finished Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis and A Murder She Wrote Mystery: Killer in the Kitchen by Don Blain.
I am currently reading the 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.
I’m also reading a couple of chapters of Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry a day.
I also just started The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy.
Soon I hope to read The Clue of the Broken Blade, a Hardy Boys Mystery, and Password to Larkspur Lane, a Nancy Drew Mystery.
This past week I watched several episodes of Murder She Wrote and Scarecrow and Mrs. King. I also watched an episode of The Danny Thomas Show (which I had never seen before).
I enjoyed a movie with John Wayne called Without Reservations and then watched for my Summer of Angela feature.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Today’s prompt: Books Set in/Take Place During X (Pick a place, time, era, etc. Examples: Books set in Europe/Italy/Australia/Chicago, books set in Regency England, books that take place during the 1900s, books set in imaginary worlds/post-apocalyptic/dystopian worlds, books set on the ocean, books set it castles, books that take place during WW2, etc.)
Today, I thought I’d list books that took place in Pennsylvania. This is a mix of books I have read, want to read, or have simply heard about.
This book is based on a true story. Set in 1784 on Hamilton Hill, Washington County, Pennsylvania, near the Monongahela River some 20 miles south of Pittsburgh, this historical novel for children features ten-year-old Ann Hamilton. The Hamilton family has settled in “The Western Country” from the other side of the Allegheny Mountains from Gettysburg, and Ann is homesick for her friends and the comforts of civilization. Ann’s only friend on Hamilton Hill is Andy McPhale, the son of squatter, and she takes on the project of teaching Andy to read and write. The story concludes with a visit by George Washington himself, who is inspecting his properties in the region and looking for a place to sup.
Description: Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation–as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love–that arises from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it’s the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.
Left alone to care for his aging father after his mother commits suicide and his sister escapes to Yale, Isaac English longs for a life beyond his hometown. When he finally sets out to leave for good, accompanied by his temperamental best friend, they are caught up in a terrible act of violence that changes their lives forever.
Evoking John Steinbeck’s novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust delves into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It’s a dark but lucid vision, a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.
(Have not read it. Maaaybe interested. Looks a bit dark for me.)
Description: Beginning in broken English, Nannie tells of her incredibly difficult first year at the school, including entries detailing her previous life as her ability to communicate in English grows. From December, 1879, to October, 1880, readers follow a remarkably resilient girl, uprooted from her home and culture, trying to find a place for herself in a rapidly changing world. Loyal, caring, and creative, she is able to see a spirit helper in a kitchen mouse and willing to defy regulations in mourning the death of her dearest friend. Rinaldi depicts widely divergent cultures with clarity and compassion. Captain Pratt, founder of a school that forcibly strips children of their native culture, also provides vocational training and field trips, and responds to his students as true individuals. The body of the text is followed by an epilogue telling of Nannie’s later life, an extensive historical note, and black-and-white photos. The period, the setting, and Nannie herself all come to life. An excellent addition to a popular series.
(Have not read it, but probably will with my daughter for school)
Description: As 1756 dawns, Isaac Lukens leaves the Pennsylvania wilderness after two years with the Lenape people. He’s failed to find the families of his birth parents, a French trader and a Lenape woman. Worse, the tribe he’s lived with, having rejected his peacemaking efforts, now ravages frontier settlements in retaliation. When he arrives in the Quaker community where he was reared, questions taunt him: Who is he—white man or Lenape? And where does he belong?
Elisabeth Alden, Isaac’s dearest childhood friend, is left to tend her young siblings alone upon her father’s death. Despite Isaac’s promise to care for her and the children, she battles resentment toward him for having left, while an unspeakable tragedy and her discordant courtship with a prominent Philadelphian weigh on her as well.
Elisabeth must marry or lose guardianship of her siblings, and her options threaten the life with her and the children that Isaac has come to love. Faced with Elisabeth’s hesitancy to marry, the prospect of finding his family at last, and the opportunity to assist in the peace process between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, Isaac must determine where—and with whom—he belongs.
Description: After 30 years and with three million copies in print, Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War classic, The Killer Angels, remains as vivid and powerful as the day it was originally published.
July 1863. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia is invading the North. General Robert E. Lee has made this daring and massive move with 70,000 men in a determined effort to draw out the Union Army of the Potomac and mortally wound it. His right hand is General James Longstreet, a brooding man who is loyal to Lee but stubbornly argues against his plan. Opposing them is an unknown factor: General George Meade, who has taken command of the Army only two days before what will be perhaps the crucial battle of the Civil War.
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fight for two conflicting dreams. One dreams of freedom, the other of a way of life. More than rifles and bullets are carried into battle. The soldiers carry memories. Promises. Love. And more than men fall on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty are also the casualties of war.
The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable, a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America’s destiny.
Deciding that the PennDutch Inn needs to go more upmarket, Magdalena Yoder is delighted to welcome the Earl and Countess Grimsley-Snodgrass and their family as honoured guests, looking forward to the challenge of introducing English nobility to traditional American culture. But, as Magdalena is about to find out, the Grimsley-Snodgrasses are by no means the easiest of guests, and at the same time she has to contend with the discovery of a mummified corpse trapped in her elevator shaft.
Then tragedy strikes during a traditional Pennsylvania-Dutch picnic at Stucky Ridge, when one of the Grimsley-Snodgrasses disappears over the edge of Lovers’ Leap. Did he fall – or was he pushed? And where is the body…?
(Have not read. Interested and looking for the first book in the series.)
Description: When Sarah McClure and her husband, Matt, move to Waterford, Pennsylvania, she hopes to make a fresh start in the small college town. Unable to find a job both practical and fulfilling, she takes a temporary position at Elm Creek Manor helping its reclusive owner Sylvia Compson prepare her family estate for sale and after the death of her estranged sister. Sylvia is also a master quilter and, as part of Sarah’s compensation, offers to share the secrets of her creative gifts with the younger woman.
During their lessons, the intricate, varied threads of Sylvia’s life begin to emerge. It is the story of a young wife living through the hardships and agonies of the World War II home front; of a family torn apart by jealousy and betrayal; of misunderstanding, loss, and a tragedy that can never be undone. As the bond between them deepens, Sarah resolves to help Sylvia free herself from remembered sorrows and restore her life—and her home—to its former glory. In the process, she confronts painful truths about her own family, even as she creates new dreams for the future.
Just as the darker sections of a quilt can enhance the brighter ones, the mistakes of the past can strengthen understanding and lead the way to new beginnings. A powerful debut by a gifted storyteller, The Quilter’s Apprentice tells a timeless tale of family, friendship, and forgiveness as two women weave the disparate pieces of their lives into a bountiful and harmonious whole.
(Haven’t read this one but have read other books in the series and enjoyed them.)
Description: Daisy, a widowed mom of two teenagers, is used to feeling protective–so when Iris started dating the wealthy and not-quite-divorced Harvey Fitz, she worried . . . especially after his bitter ex stormed in and caused a scene at the party Daisy’s Tea Garden was catering. Then there was the gossip she overheard about Harvey’s grown children being cut out of his will. Daisy didn’t want her aunt to wind up with a broken heart–but she never expected Iris to wind up a suspect in Harvey’s murder.
Now the apple bread and orange pekoe is on the back burner while the cops treat the shop like a crime scene–and Daisy hopes that Jonas Groft, a former detective from Philadelphia, can help her clear her aunt’s name and bag the real killer before things boil over . . .
Description: A little bit of mystery, a dash of romance, and a whole lot of heart
After being laid off from her job as a librarian at a small college, Gladwynn Grant isn’t sure what her next step in life is. When a job as a small-town newspaper reporter opens up in the town her grandmother Lucinda Grant lives in, she decides to take it to get away from a lot of things – Bennett Steele for one.
Lucinda has been living alone since Gladwynn’s grandfather passed away six years ago and she isn’t a take-it-easy, rock-on-your-front-porch kind of grandma. She’s always on the go and lately, she’s been on the go with a man who Gladwynn doesn’t know.
Gladwynn thought Brookstone was a small, quiet town, but within a few days of being there, she has to rethink that notion. Someone has cut the bank loan officer’s brakes, threatening letters are being sent, and memories of a jewelry theft from the 1990s have everyone looking at the cold case again.
What, if anything, will Gladwynn uncover about her new hometown and her grandmother’s new male friend? And what will she do about her grandmother’s attempt to set her up with the handsome Pastor Luke Callahan?
Find out in this modern mystery with a vintage feel.
(Read it. Wrote it. Yes, this was a cheesy pick and not why I did the list, but then when I started down through the list, I thought, “Oh! My book takes place in Pennsylvania! Haha!”)
Have you read any of these books?
Also, if you have any book-related posts you would like to add to my monthly link-up A Good Book and A Cup of Tea, you can do so here or you can also link to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot on Fridays!
Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.
As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also started as Nancy when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the parts that were being written for her character.
This week I watched a Hardy Boys centered episode called Wipe Out.
This episode was one of the better ones, which I seem to be writing a lot more as I continue through the show. It seems the show got a lot better as it went on. Episodes still have some cheesy moments, sure, but the mysteries are better than in the beginning.
I spent the entire first half of this episode thinking our boys might have gone rogue and had become criminals. Luckily, things started to make sense at the halfway point.
We open this episode with a surfing competition underway and soon learn that Frank is in the competition and the boys are in Hawaii.
They aren’t only in Hawaii, they have found two girls who are hanging all over them and going to luaus with them. Of course Joe (Shaun Cassidy) is asked to sing at one of them and of course Frank wanders off to investigate something while Joe is singing. Frank’s wandering off continues a series-long inside joke.
After Frank’s competing, which brings him accolades and a chance to compete for a bigger prize, the boys head back to their hotel room and find out they’ve been robbed. This sends them to the police station where a cop sort of brushes them off because he says their stuff is long gone by now.
This will mean the boys will to call their dad, Fenton Hardy, and see if he can wire them some money for the rest of their trip. Joe says Frank has to call him because he’s the one that wanted to come and be in the surfing competition.
Frank has a better idea and the next thing we now the guys are breaking into a room after swiping the key of a couple at the hotel. I watched in horror as our heroes started loading up bags with the jewelry and money of the people and even more horror as they went to dinner and ordered big ticket items, telling the waitress they were fine on money.
She knew they’d been robbed, though, so she was pretty horrified like me, suspicious of how they got the money to pay for their meal.
This episode did a very good job of keeping us guessing what was going to happen next and tossing in characters we thought were going to bust the boys somehow.
We had hotel cops and town cops coming after them and suspecting them of theft. Then we eventually discover there is a burglary ring, and we wonder how the boys got themselves wrapped up in it. Or did they? What is going on?
Even the girls they are seeing are starting to ask questions, like why they have a pair of fancy binoculars that look like some stolen by a couple at the hotel.
Usually I give spoilers in these posts but today I won’t because it might be fun if you want to watch it later on your own and find out what was really going on.
If you like listening to Shaun Cassidy sing you’ll get your chance a few times in this episode, especially at the beginning and end when he is singing Beach Boys songs.
The joke about Frank never hearing Joe sing continues on as Joe keeps trying to play a cassette for Frank so he can finally hear the performance. That was a fun gag but less fun was having to see Shaun’s short-shorts and hair leg every single time they focused on the cassette player in his hand.
The surfing scenes were a lot of fun to watch and I have a feeling that young ladies back then just loved to see Parker Stevenson running in and out of the waves. I will say that they kept the show very chaste because he always wore a shirt. There was one scene where Shaun was shirtless while he was rescuing Parker …er.. Frank and I’m guessing the young ladies would have liked that.
You can find the posts I’ve written about other Hard Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries shows by searching on the search bar to the right.
Up next I’ll be watching a Nancy Drew centered mystery, The Mystery of the Ghostwriter’s Cruise.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Sometimes, I share what I’ve been listening to.
Thursday I received a package from Thriftbooks and inside was supposed to be a copy of Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (check), a copy of The Nancy Drew Scrapbook by Karen Plunket-Powel (check), and a Murder She Wrote Mystery (no check). Instead of the Murder She Wrote mystery, I found a very old book with a crumbling dust jacket and more dust than this mild-asthmatic with allergies was comfortable with. I barely looked at the book but I thought the title looked French.
Later that night after sending off an annoyed email to Thriftbooks to tell them they sent me the wrong book, I decided to take a closer look at the book, to at least find out the name.
I had never heard of the book, but it was called Murder A La Stroganoff by Caryl Brahms and SJ Snow. Inside the cover, it had a stamp that said it was from the Newberry Library, had been retired from their shelves, and was part of the Barzel Dance Collection. I searched a little more online and these books are fairly rare because it is a first edition from 1938 and the book is no longer in print. They did issue a paperback copy in 1985, but there are not a ton of the hardcovers published by The Crime Club, Doubleday & Co, New York out there.
Sadly, the book isn’t necessarily worth a ton without the dust jacket, which crumbled in my hands when I opened the package, but I couldn’t find one online being sold for less than $20 so, hey, if I ever do decide to sell it, I could make at least $20 off something I was shipped for free. With the dust jacket it could be worth up to $150. Apparently there aren’t a ton of these first editions out there and it’s a bit of a cult classic among mystery readers.
Thriftbooks did get back to me, by the way, and didn’t get the point that they sent the wrong book. Instead, they said they were sorry the book didn’t show up the way I wanted it to and that they didn’t have any other books with that title (they still think it is the Murder She Wrote book I first ordered) so to just keep the book and do what it with I wanted. They then issued me a refund for the book.
The book is a mystery and crime book with some satire mixed in about the ballet industry and is the second book in a series. I can not find a description of the book line but I think I actually want to read it so I might get a copy of the paperback instead of trying to read this older book which might bother my allergies.
I will be writing a blog post in the future about the book and its authors, though, because I fell down a rabbit hole researching what the book might be worth. I suppose that in the end getting the wrong book wasn’t such a bad thing.
Last week I finished The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie and The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery).
I’ll have reviews of both of them soon but I did enjoy them both. The Pale Horse was obviously more adult — I mean, not like “adult-adult” but more mature themes. But not like … mature-mature. *wink*
I’ve been enjoying some leisurely reading of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Imitable Jeeves.
The book is so funny and witty. It’s been a very nice escape. The Jeeves books are comedic books about Bertie Wooster, a British gentleman from London, who is always getting into somewhat weird situations where he has to be bailed out or helped by his valet Jeeves.
This book is exactly what I have needed this week.
I think I’m going to have to give up on The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh before I even really get too far in it. I pushed through the first chapter wondering why the author was giving me so much information at once and when she was going to get to an actual story. The first chapter is entirely Isadora standing in a supermarket, thinking about her life with very little interaction with anyone else or action. It looks to me like the whole book is mainly her thinking about things and dumping a lot of info on the reader all in one go. I just can’t get into it, in other words.
I might try again this week, but otherwise I am going to move on to Prince Caspian and then But First Murder by Bee Littlefield.
This week I watched Gaslight (1944) as part of my Summer of Angela movie watching event and really enjoyed it. It isn’t a movie I’d watch over and over because it is pretty dark in some ways, but I did enjoy it. I also watched The Rains Came, a 1939 movie with Myrna Loy and Tyrone Powers and Abbott and Costello in The Jack and The Beanstalk. This morning I watched church with Lisa Harper as the guest pastor and followed it up with a couple episodes of Just A Few Acres Farm.
I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School and wrote a little more this past week. I hope to have more time to write this week since Little Miss is going to VBS and I’ll probably wait at the church for her to save gas.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Welcome to my June newsletter! That’s right. I’m going to try to do this once a month again and here on my main blog instead of Substack. I’ll have a page set up for you to find past newsletters.
All three Gladwynn books on sale
All three ebooks in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series are on sale this week on Amazon.
You can read descriptions of each of the books at the links.
Update on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series
I’m working on book four of the Gladwynn Grant series but I wouldn’t say I am working on it steadly.
Alas, I am working on it here and there, but I have plenty of ideas. I hope to release it in October and will have a cover reveal by the end of July.
The book will be called Gladwynn Grant Goes Back To School. There will be a mystery, of course, since this is a mystery series. I can tell you that it will involve the local superintendent and that another family member of Gladwynn’s might show up for a visit. One we haven’t met yet.
There will be, of course, just a touch of romance like the other books.
I’ll have a description of the book by next month’s newsletter.
Admiring my roses
I always look forward to when the flowers bloom in our yard and this year was no different. The roses were beautiful this year but didn’t seem to last as long. The heatwave we had this week and the fact I failed to water them didn’t help.
Here are a few photos of them while they were blooming.
A Giveaway
I always had fun doing giveaways on my Substack Newsletter so I thought I’d do that with this newsletter. I would like to send one person a paperback copy of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing.
If you are interested in a copy you can simply tell me what your favorite book genre is in the comments and I will randomly choose a winner by next week.
Find me on social media:
I wanted to close by reminding readers of my newsletters that I am on YouTube now (still figuring it out and only doing shorts for now). You can find my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@goodbooksandtea
I want to thank everyone who supports my writing, whether here on the blog or by borrowing or buying my books, or just reading them at all. It really means a lot to me since writing is a distraction for me from other stresses in life.
Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.
As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also started as Nancy when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the parts that were being written for her character.
This time around I am writing about a Nancy Drew centered episode called The Mystery of the Fallen Angel.
*Disclaimer: These posts do spoil the entire episode. Also, I do joke around a lot about the cheesiness or plot holes or the “weird” 70s hairstyles, clothes or music, but please know it is all in good fun. I have fun watching these and the mysteries are often very interesting. Please don’t leave me comments enraged that I am making fun of your favorite show. *wink* I make fun of my favorite shows too!
To me, this was one of the better episodes I’ve seen so far. It was fairly well written, simply put together, and Nancy’s character was less whiney or rude than in other episodes.
We start out at a carnival. George and Nancy are playing a carnival game and they are winning. The man running the game isn’t altogether pleased with them winning and reminds them that the event is for charity.
Nancy lets him know she’s going to give the toys they are winning to the children.
Next, we find Ned in with a fortune teller. She looks at his palm and tells him that’s “too masculine.” (Snicker).
“You’re too dominating of a man for the average girl to handle,” she says.
Ned blushes and scoffs. Laughing nervously he says, “Oh…so that’s my problem.”
The fortune teller suggests that his forcefulness is what causes women to run from his advances.
“Oh. That’s because of my forcefulness?” Ned says with wonder.
The fortune teller says, “Yes, trust me.”
Switching scenes, we see a glass of champagne being poured for Carson Drew, Nancy’s dad. He’s telling a man named Robert that this is the best benefit they’ve had so far.
Robert thanks him and says the benefit is one excuse to “keep the old place” now that all the kids have moved out.
The wife laughs and asks how they could possibly downsize anymore.
“We’re already down to 18 rooms a piece,” she says.
Jocular, rich-people-laughter follows.
Outside we see a young man with long dark hair and a sports jersey sneaking around in the dark. He knocks on the back door and a woman lets him in. Both looked panicked and she says, “We’re going to get caught, Henry. If only you could tell people who you are.”
And – oh! Who is this young man? He looks very, very familiar.
Now I shall confess that I took a photo of the actor while I was watching this the first time and asked my husband who it was. I knew he looked very familiar.
The answer I got back was, “A. Martinez. Longmire.”
Yep. A Martinez was in this one. Maybe one of his first shows? Not sure, but he was very good and it was a sign of good acting to come, in my humble opinion.
Anyhow, without giving us much more information we switch to another scene of a group of bikers pulling up and a woman scolding them for not being there to help run the carnival.
“Where have you guys been? I pay you to work for the carnival, not to go joyriding,” she says in a thick New York accent.
She tells them to all get back to work and tells the one girl to go home. The young girl says she’d prefer to stay there, she’s having fun.
When the woman leaves, the man says they’ve got important work to do later. He hugs the young girl, squeezes her face and tells her to lighten up but she says, “I’m just not used to all this.”
“There’s a lot you’re not use to, but you better get used to it,” he says. “Tonight’s your first lesson.”
We don’t know what that means but we are certain to find out at some point.
Later Henry is caught leaving the house by the rich wife who asks if she can help him.
He says he got lost and Robert says, “You’re Henry Salazar, aren’t you?”
Henry doesn’t reply but says he has to be going.
When he leaves, Robert tells Carson he’s the kid who used to work in Foster’s drugstore until old man Foster caught him with his hand in the till.
“That was never proven, as I remember,” Carson says.
“Still,” Robert says. “I don’t like him hanging around here.”
Henry sneaks back to say goodbye to Tina and makes her promise she won’t say anything about who he is or who she is. He says she’ll get into big trouble if she says anything and we aren’t sure if that is a threat or a reminder.
Next, we see the young carnival girl looking worried outside, a window opens in the mansion and the other carnival workers are — gasp! Inside the mansion!
The girl blows a whistle at the moment that Nancy, George, and Ned walk by. Ned is telling a joke, and they are laughing but hear the whistle, which I gather is to alert the carnival workers it’s all clear.
Ned, Nancy, and George shrug the whistle off and keep going and then we see all the carnival workers nonchalantly returning to their places at the carnival…somehow no one noticed they were gone. Hmmm…
Oh well. Back to the mansion where chaos has ensued because the rich lady, Clara, went to put a pin back into her safe and discovered all of her jewels are gone. She let out a scream like she found a dead body and George, Nancy, Ned, and Carson go running.
Clara and John clarify that the jewels weren’t worth a ton but they were insured for over a million dollars. The sheriff comes rushing in not long afterward and greets Nancy and Carson then asks if anyone touched anything.
“Of course not!” Nancy says, clearly offended.
The sheriff is immediately apologetic. “Sorry. I forgot who I was dealing with for a moment.”
He’s been in similar situations with them before, after all since Nancy can’t keep her nose out of police business.
The sheriff wants to know if they saw anyone suspicious walking around or in the house and — Of course! Snap! Robert and Clara immediately think of Henry. He was in the house. He must have taken the jewels!
Carson backs up the couple by saying that Henry did seem suspicious, which he adds he hates to say since he seems like a good young man who Nancy went to school with.
We don’t know how the sheriff finds Henry but after the commercial break (though they are cut out of the YouTube videos I watch) we see Nancy in a jail cell with Henry, telling him she works as a part time investigator for his attorney, Carson Drew.
Carson is going to take on his case and she wants him to tell her why he was in the mansion.
He refuses. He didn’t steal Mrs. Jordan’s jewelry but he won’t tell Nancy why he was in the house.
She wants to know if had anything to do with seeing Tina.
“Tina who?”
“The Jordan’s maid. I thought you two knew each other.”
(Um…how did she make this connection? I’m not sure but I think I missed a scene where Nancy saw them together in the house.)
Henry says he doesn’t know here and never met her and there is no reason to get an innocent person involved in anything.
(If he doesn’t know her then how does he know she’s innocent. Right? Right?!)
“I do not know her. I did not rob the Jordans,” he tells Nancy.
Nancy tries Tina. She won’t say anything either.
The Jordans are pleased that Carson is going to defend Henry. The sheriff doesn’t know why the man would care about defending a man who might have stolen things from him.
“If he’s guilty, the law will take its course without my direction,” Robert Jordan says. “If he’s innocent, I don’t want to be responsible for destroying anyone’s life.”
The sheriff wants to look into Tina now. Nancy, though, says there were tons of people there the night of the carnival, including the carnival workers.
While leaving with Carson, Nancy says she wants to check into the carnival workers and see if they could have been involved in the theft of the jewels.
Carson is one of the most laid-back dads I’ve ever seen (in the books and the show) and sometimes expresses concern for Nancy’s safety but usually only sends her on her way with a small laugh and a “You be careful now,” like she is playing make believe in the backyard.
This time around, though, Carson actually expresses concern!
“That might not be too safe,” he tells Nancy.
“I’m just going to go ask a few questions,” Nancy assures him.
Carson isn’t buying it. “Nancy, people don’t like having their lives pried into.”
Right?! Yet your daughter is doing it all the time, dude, and usually you don’t seem to care too much, just letting her gallivant around, sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. (Remember I am joking around in these posts, not actually slamming the show. Just having a little fun.)
“I’m not going to pry,” Nancy insists. “Just observe.”
“Well, you be careful while you’re observing,” Carson says with a nervous laugh.
Nancy’s idea of observing is dressing up in a bikini top under a buttoned down shirt, and pretending she’s a runaway to try to get a job with the carnival.
Ned and George don’t like this at all and warn her against it. In true Nancy fashion, she ignores them and moves forward, but does thank them when they say they’ll be showing up to the carnival later in the day to check on her.
Nancy struts into that carnival with an attitude. Her hair is all feathered, her cleavage is showing, and the mom in me is like “Oh no. No. I don’t like this one little bit.”
But I can’t do anything about it so I just have to watch Nancy try to make herself fit in by jumping on a motorcyle and taking off when a guy tells her he bets she doesn’t know how to ride it. Then, after the carnival owner hires her, I have to keep watching when these creepy dudes later put her in the cage of a ride and spin her upside down up in the air to try to get her to admit she’s a narc.
I’m telling you these guys are creepy! They are definitely the r-word type and Nancy is truly putting herself at risk. If she was my daughter, I’d be flipping out on her. I don’t care if she is 18 now. I think she’s 18 in the show. I’m not actually sure. She’s still my child and I’d be fuming mad if I saw her doing these things.
So, after these guys try to get her to confess who she is, the young woman we met earlier )who was afraid she was going to blow their mission – whatever it was) says she knows Nancy. Nancy, she claims, is a friend of her sister’s and that she’s there to try to bring her home since she ran away from home.
She’s lying of course. We also learn her name is Anne.
Nancy thanks Anne when they are alone, but the girl tells her to get lost because she is in danger.
“You be gone by tonight or you’re on your own!” she tells Nancy.
This whole episode had me anxious. The creepy guys, Nancy putting herself at risk and being away from friends and family, the young runaway girl.
Boy was I relieved when Ned and George showed up and the three of them joined together to find out if the carnival workers are the real thieves of Mrs. Jordans jewels. They don’t find the jewels, but they do find a van full of stolen televisions and other electronics. These carnival workers might not be jewel thieves, but they are thieves of some kind.
Ned and George also let Nancy know that Henry was let out on bail, but he jumped it. The cops are looking for him. Just lovely!
Nancy tells George and Ned to write down the serial numbers of the electronics before they leave to try to find out if the items are stolen. The three of them then part ways, Nancy back to her ruse and Ned and George to find out if the TVs are stolen.
Nancy runs into Henry while he’s snooping around the carnival. He tells her that her dad told him she was following the carnival to try to find out if the workers were involved and that he also found the van with the TVs. He tells Nancy that Tina was arrested as his accomplice. He has to find out who really stole the jewels so she doesn’t have a crime pinned on her that she didn’t commit. He admits he knows Tina but won’t tell Nancy how.
They part ways and Anne finds Nancy at the game booth she’s working at later and says that Vince, the head bad guy, knows someone was in his van. They found out who the person is and they’re going to find out why they think Vince is guilty of something.
Nancy isn’t sure what that means and then Vince’s creepy henchmen tells her that shes’s taking a ride with them so they can show her how they deal with spies.
Nancy is put on the back of a bike and driven to a rural area where Henry is in the middle of a circle of motorcycles while they taunt him.
Nancy watches this for a while and then she has had enough. She jumps on the bike the other guy (essentially her kidnapper) got off and roars toward the other bikes, somehow knocking them all over (it’s television, people). She gets Henry on the back of her bike ,and they take off toward the carnival, all the bikers soon in pursuit (once they get their bikes back up). This leads to a windy and twisty chase among the carnival booths during which a lot of the bikers crash out.
Eventually the cops show up and stop the highspeed bike chase. Ned and George are with them. Nancy stops her bike and thanks Ned for calling the police. As an aside (yes, I do a lot of these), I noticed that Nancy was a lot nicer to Ned in this episode than previous ones. She even compliments him by saying, “Ned, you are without a doubt the smartest, neatest, most…”
“Most forceful?” Ned asks, harkening back to the fortune teller’s comments at the beginning of the show.
“Most forceful man I know,” Nancy agrees.
Anne, the young woman who tried to help Nancy, says she was forced to help the burglary gang. She’s scared to go with the police, but Nancy says Carson will help her. This poor guy. Nancy is always finding people for him to help, and he rarely gets paid by them, which will actually be commented on at the end of this episode. It does have me wondering how this man has time to make money with all the pro bono work he does.
To wrap things up with the Jordans, Carson and Nancy visit them, and Nancy asks Mrs. Jordan to open the safe in front of them. The Jordans are a bit offended but agree. While working on opening the safe, Mrs. Jordan breaks down and confesses she doesn’t know how to open the safe. She never has. The safe was already open when she came in the room.
Nancy says George and Ned uncovered in their investigations that the Jordans are broke (how did they find this? I have no idea!) and says she believes the couple sold the jewels off and then when they had no more to sell, they pretended the jewels were stolen so they could get the insurance money. The Jordans admit that this is exactly what they did and are ashamed.
Nancy says it was very convenient for the couple that Henry walked into the house that night. She asks if they were willing to let Henry go to jail for their crime of insurance fraud and they said they were sure Carson would find out that Henry didn’t do it and if he didn’t, they were going to confess before Henry’s case went to trial. They even asked Carson to represent him so he would find out that Henry wasn’t guilty, they say. Robert asks Carson to not only forgive them but represent them in their insurance fraud case. He agrees, saying he can’t let their 20-year friendship end over this mistake. (Carson is way too nice.)
Another aside — does George have another job? I mean Ned works for Carson but what does George do? She doesn’t go to school. She doesn’t appear to work anywhere. She runs around with Nancy solving crimes so does Carson pay her too? And if he does, how does he since he keeps taking cases on for free for Nancy? Of course, he does have wealthy clients like the Jordans so maybe that is how.
There is also a final wrap up scene with Henry and Tina. It turns out that Tina is Henry’s sister. She’s in the United States illegally from Mexico and Henry was helping her get her green card and papers so she could stay legally. He didn’t want anyone to know who she was so she wouldn’t be deported.
Carson says he will help her get her papers and make sure she’s not deported. Luckily this is the 70s and not today or Carson might have a pretty hard time keeping Tina from being sent back to Mexico.
As I mentioned above, this was one of the better episodes in my opinion. The story wasn’t too bad, the writing was better than others and Nancy was a lot nicer to Ned all around.
If you want to read other episode recaps you can do a search for Hardy Boys Nancy Drew via the search bar to the right.
Up next, I will be recapping The Hardy Boys episode Wipe Out.
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
