Nancy Drew Diaries 4 – Once Upon a Thriller

Carolyn Keene's Once Upon a Thriller is a Nancy Drew mystery for 9 year olds where real crimes start to look a lot like the plots of a famous writer's books.

What happens

Nancy, Bess and George have rented a cabin on Moon Lake for a relaxing weekend. Well, relaxing for Bess. Nancy has a hike, a canoe trip and waterskiing all planned (and a new mystery novel to read, of course).

Then she leaves the picnic lunch at home. A lunch trip into the little town of Avondale finds two fire engines outside the bookshop. Lacey O'Brien, a mystery writer who hardly ever shows her face, was meant to be signing books there that day.

One of her fans points out that her latest book, Burned, starts with exactly this kind of fire. Faulty wiring in an old chandelier, which turns out to be no accident at all.

So who would want to burn down a bookshop? An inn owner who mutters that the shop's owner "had it coming". A shopkeeper who snatches back a scrap of paper with three numbers on it and hurries off without a thank you. And a writer who lives behind a row of No Trespassing signs.

It's not a gentle weekend away. The canoe tips over in a sudden storm right by Lacey's cabin, and someone on the beach just watches the girls struggle and then disappears. The local sheriff gives them a stern warning about trespassing (Bess goes very pink when his nephew hands her a blanket).

Then a statue is taken from a gallery in town. Is someone working through Lacey's books one crime at a time?

Nancy tells the whole thing herself, and she's lovely company. She admits she's a scatterbrain with wallets and car keys, yet she never misses a clue. There's a great moment in a game of Scrabble where she's losing badly and suddenly has an idea about those mystery numbers.

George is miles ahead at Scrabble and loves to say so. Bess would much rather be shopping than hiking. Nancy is old enough to drive and has a boyfriend back home, so it feels a touch older than some mysteries.

If your reader loves a mystery with books at the heart of it, this one's a treat. Half the fun is spotting how the crimes in town match the ones in Lacey's novels.

What to read next

If they'd like another case where a statue goes missing, try The Vanishing Statue. This time Nancy's invited to a grand party at the mansion of a widow nobody in River Heights has seen for ten years.