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Read The Clue In The Crumbling Wall (1945)

The Clue in the Crumbling Wall (1945)

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Series
Rating
4.44 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
044809522X (ISBN13: 9780448095226)
Language
English
Publisher
grosset & dunlap

The Clue In The Crumbling Wall (1945) - Plot & Excerpts

I remember reading this book when I was younger and really loving it. Don't get me wrong—it was cute and all—but not exactly something to write home about. Maybe it was The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion that I really loved? (I'll try that one for the next challenge, as my "cozy" mystery...) The ending was a bit... anticlimactic to me...Anyway, this book was a Nancy Drew version of Cinderella. The kind where Cinderella is a dancer who has been missing for 10 years, and in which the "prince" (aka rich fiancé) died 5 years afterward, leaving his fortune to the missing woman, who must claim it within 5 additional years. And so time is running out and Nancy Drew must FIND the dancer, or the evil lawyer will get all the money (through mischievous ways)... and in which the solution to the mystery is all about shoe-size.So it's sorta like.... depressing Cinderella. Except it was actually quite happy (and CHEEEEEEEESE-OLA) in the end, though the fiancé was still dead (this isn't Alias, after all)... Because the dancer's sister and niece were all reunited and yadda-yadda-yadda. It was cute, but predictable... And clues come to Nancy a little too conveniently (and always have...), as though she were a HUGE clue-magnet, and clues can't help but to POP right out of the woodworks and jump on her... :)

The Clue in the Crumbling Wall is a children's story by Carolyn Keene (pseudonym) and the 22nd book in the Nancy Drew series. During their attempt to find a missing dancer before the woman loses the opportunity to inherit a castle, Nancy and her friends uncover a plot to keep the woman from her inheritance.I’ve always been a voracious reader. So, as a child, one of my favorite things about summer was the frequent trips to our local library, which was less than a mile from our house. Like most young girls of a certain age (ahem), my love for mysteries started with Nancy Drew—there simply was no mystery too baffling that she couldn’t solve. And as I would read her most current adventure, I would imagine myself following in her footsteps … taking charge and plunging ahead, getting into mischief, chasing down culprits and solving the mystery. Even though I haven’t re-read any of these books since I was a child, I still think that Nancy is a great character—her courage, confidence and fierce independence, makes her an iconic source of inspiration for young girls everywhere. A must-read children's book, The Clue in the Crumbling Wall is another wonderful Nancy Drew mystery.

What do You think about The Clue In The Crumbling Wall (1945)?

What a great setting--old estate with overgrown gardens and a castle along a river and an old button factory where the buttons were made from river clams. And a great plot--missing heiress, vandals searching for a secret hidden in the walls, non-stop sleuthing by Nancy, Bess and George. Even some human interest with a wayward boy and the missing woman's needy sister and niece. I had forgotten how good this is. The part where George's clothes are stolen is humorous and the mention of a year later at the end unusual.
—LuAnn

While the title suggests a chapter in book by "This Old House" author Bob Villa, in fact, Nancy and her tubby cousin and her transsexual cousin have stumbled into another mysterious location to investigate mysterious goings-on by mysterious baddies. The book hews closely to the Drew formula with Nancy and her crew of relations - including hunky Carson Drew - poking around River Heights and its environs trying to restore an inheritance to its rightful, youthful, owner; a formula well known to Drew-ies by this point in the series. Some curve balls get tossed out. At one point pre-surgical female George gets stranded naked on the old estate - pretty kinky given the date of publication and target audience. The mystery partly gets solved when a characters feet fit a stone hanging in an old garden because foot size is always conclusive - just ask Queen Cinderella. However, the traditional arc of Nancy getting entangled in someone else's affair, getting captured, escaping with the help of 1947's People's Sexiest Man Alive and father Carson Drew and eventually pointing River Heights constabulary (all trained at the same academy Gotham's Commissioner Gordon's team attended) in the direction of the nogoodniks. All this an fewer grammatical problems than useful for this series.
—Jonny99

This was my favorite Nancy Drew book and the only one I remember well now, probably because I read it over and over again. I loved the gothic atmosphere of the old castle and the Cinderella story behind the mystery. I'm not sure if I should try reading it again now or just keep my younger-self's memory of it. We had the 1950's-1960's editions, not the later edited versions. I don't know if they would seem nostalgic now or just terribly dated. Not going to add to my "read" list all the other Nancy Drew books I read, which was probably a dozen or so of the ones that were available back then. Nancy was one of my three big influential childhood heroes and influences - the other two being Wonder Woman (naturally!) and Joy Adamson.
—Caseyazalea

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