Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew 17 – Wedding Day Disaster

Carolyn Keene's Wedding Day Disaster is a Clue Crew mystery for 8 year olds about a wedding cake with a great big chunk missing.

What happens

Eight-year-old Nancy Drew is finally getting to be a flower girl, at her cousin Sara's all-white winter wedding. Her best friends Bess and George are there too, dressed as snow fairies, because George's mum is doing the catering.

It doesn't go smoothly. First there's Kendall, a little girl who badly wanted to be the flower girl herself. Somebody hides a raw onion under Nancy's rose petals, so she walks down the aisle with her eyes streaming (and Kendall grinning at her from the end of a row).

Then the enormous seven-layer cake is wheeled out in front of everyone. There's a huge piece gone from the back.

The very dramatic cake artist, Famous François, blames the children. Sara is close to tears. So the Clue Crew get to work.

There are plenty of suspects. A wedding hall owner who's meant to be on a diet but keeps sneaking snacks. Brett's aunt, a baker who's upset she wasn't asked to make the cake. And of course Kendall.

The fun is in the clues. A creamy footprint next to the cake. A snowman tie with a suspicious smear down the middle, fished out of a bin. Nancy's dad filming everything on his brand-new camcorder. There's even a bit where Nancy's puppy, Chocolate Chip, gets roped in as a sniffer dog, with surprising results.

It's gentle and funny and very sweet. Nobody is truly wicked, just greedy or jealous or trying a bit too hard. And Nancy, Bess and George bicker and giggle like real best friends.

If your reader likes a mystery they can puzzle out alongside the detectives, this is a good one. Every clue is there on the page if you look.

What to read next

There's more of the three friends in Ticket Trouble, where the case unfolds at their school's autumn fair.