Nancy Drew Diaries 19 – Hidden Pictures

Carolyn Keene's Hidden Pictures is a Nancy Drew mystery for 9 year olds about people who seem to vanish into old black-and-white photographs.

What happens

Nancy has talked Bess and George into a trip to Shady Oaks, a rainy little town hours from home. The excuse is a new exhibition by a famous photographer. The truth? Nancy hadn't even heard of him until a couple of days ago (her friends work that out very quickly).

Someone posted her a newspaper cutting. A young museum worker called Grace has gone missing, and her image has turned up in one of the exhibition photos (all of them taken in the 1940s).

Then, on their first morning, a girl screams on the museum steps. Her boyfriend has vanished too. And there he is on the wall, in a hoodie and jeans, walking through a street scene from 1945.

The whole town is whispering about a curse, laid by the photographer's old partner after the two of them fell out. And the police are threatening to close the museum by Friday.

So is it a curse, or is someone being very clever with a camera? Nancy doesn't believe in curses for a second.

There's a great bunch of people to puzzle over. A curator whose museum was struggling until the missing people started selling tickets. The photographer's granddaughter, who's said to have never liked him. And a super-keen fan called Riley who seems to know everything about his photos.

It's all in Nancy's own words, so you're squashed behind a dusty bookcase in a staff corridor with her. She finds a hidden door with a keypad. Then she sneezes and gives herself away!

Bess and George are lovely company. Bess turns up in matching polka-dot wellies and umbrella. George keeps waving her phone in the air looking for a signal.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

People going missing is the heart of this one, with talk of a curse and even kidnap. It's more creepy than scary in the opening chapters, and Nancy is sure there's a sensible answer. She's not above a fib or two to get people talking, either (she pretends to be a magazine reporter).

It's number nineteen in the Nancy Drew Diaries. The opening chapters don't lean on any earlier book, so it works fine as a first one. If your reader enjoys spotting a clue in a picture, this one's a treat.

What to read next

If they're after more art with their mystery, try The Vanishing Statue, next in the series. It's back home in River Heights this time, with a mysterious invitation to a grand arts party and a statue that goes missing.