Nancy Drew Diaries 6 – Secret at Mystic Lake

Carolyn Keene's Secret at Mystic Lake is a Nancy Drew mystery for 9 year olds about a camping trip where everything that can go wrong does.

What happens

It's George's birthday, and her parents have treated all three friends to a three-day bike tour around Mystic Lake Park. George is over the moon. Bess is not. To be fair, she was a good sport on the practice rides (Nancy reminds her she only cried for the first hour last time).

The tour is run by twins. Caitlin is very organised, off to Yale in the autumn and oddly tense. Henry is a joker who'd rather be in the south of France. Joining them are Zoe, who hates the outdoors and has the most awful laugh, and Dagger, a calm vegan who meditates at dawn and has a habit of appearing silently right behind you.

They stop for lunch by a pond and leave their gear at the roadside. When they get back, every tent has gone.

Who steals tents in the middle of nowhere? Henry thinks it's a prank. Caitlin reckons another group grabbed them by mistake. Nancy isn't convinced by either. And isn't it a bit odd that Zoe just happens to have packed a spare?

They vote to carry on and sleep under the stars. Then it pours. Four girls end up squashed into a tent built for two, and tempers get very short.

That's the bit that really stays with you. Bess has found a new best friend in Zoe, and George feels left out on her own birthday trip. The row in the tent feels so real. George brings up the time she let Bess bleach her hair at a sleepover and it went orange for a week. You can feel how hurt they both are.

If you've got a reader who has ever felt a friendship wobble when someone new comes along, they'll probably recognise a lot of this. Nancy is stuck in the middle, trying her best to keep the peace.

The mystery keeps ticking along underneath. Maps that never got printed, two leaders who can't agree and a scream just before dawn all keep the questions coming. It's tense rather than scary, and Nancy is honest about how jumpy she gets in the dark.

What to read next

For another trip away with Bess and George, The Stolen Show takes the three friends to a snowy winter carnival in Quebec City, where Nancy has to walk a bull terrier round a very posh dog show.