Last summer I challenged my then 13 year old daughter to help me with reviews and we had a lot of fun reading Nancy Drew books together and putting together thoughts for a review.  This summer was a different story.  She’s feeling a bit too old for the books, but I’ve managed to get her to read a few along with me.

The Nancy Drew books were something inspirational for girls of my generation, with few role models out there who weren’t simply home-makers and mothers.  Now it’s a different story as there are many strong, independent role models for young women.  It seems like there’s little a woman can’t do if she puts her mind to it, even race cars in an all-male field.  When will we get the first woman umpire in Major League Baseball, though?

Back to Nancy Drew, we picked up where we left off last year, which is easy to do.  Although there is a central cast of characters to the Nancy Drew mysteries, there’s no real ongoing story that someone needs to be familiar with before picking up one of the books.  Sure, Ned is Nancy’s boyfriend, but it hasn’t really gone anywhere and there’s none of that ongoing relationship angst present.

In The Clue of the Velvet Mask, Nancy stumbles onto an ongoing problem in her fictional hometown of River Heights.  There seems to be a gang of thieves around, stealing valuables from homes where parties are being hosted.  Her father is working on trying to save the business of his friend Mr. Lightener, who runs a sort of hosting companies for all these society shindigs.  On the first page all is revealed as Nancy’s father gives her a warning prior to her attending a masquerade party.  Of course, as fate has it, Nancy ends up accidentally smack dab in the middle of the heist, having inadvertently picked up a clue along the way.

This puts Nancy in the gang’s sights as they set out to get her out of the way so they can continue their crime spree unimpeded.  To thwart them, Nancy’s friend George Fayne (a female with that name) disguises herself as Nancy.  The only problem is the disguise works a bit too well and George is kidnapped in Nancy’s place.  Although she is soon found, she is not the same George that Nancy and George’s family remember.  Nancy tries to balance her friend’s peace of mind with solving the mystery.  With more action and peril than I’ve seen for a while in the Nancy Drew series, this builds up very nicely to the climactic finish.

The Clue of the Velvet Mask is a story that really suffers from the revisions made to the series in 1969.  There are minor changes between the two versions of the book, but the main one was the references to the drugs used by the gang and the effect they have on George and others they use them on.  I suspect this was done because of the issue of rampant drug use surfacing in the 1960’s.  The problem is there’s no real detail given to what happens to George or why she is acting the way she is.  The explanation of how she suddenly snaps out of it just doesn’t ring true either.

The pace of the story also feels rushed.  This is generally true of all of the Nancy Drew mysteries, which generally move along at a single-minded breakneck pace.  The Clue of the Velvet Mask suffers a bit more, probably because so much of the action is suppose to be taking place at upper-crust parties.  You would think River Heights was some sore of swanky place with all the parties going on and all the people who refuse advice to secure valuables.

Which leads me to my daughter’s evaluation of the book.  It can be summed up in one sentence: Are all the people in River Heights stupid?  Between the people who are advised that their party could be targeted for a robbery and ignore the warnings to the police and Mr. Lightener who cannot see who the culprit is when he is right under their noses, it would seem that all of River Heights is taking mind-numbing drugs.  Perhaps she is just getting a bit too old for these mysteries to rivet her the way they used to, but if it seems obvious to a 14 year old before getting 20 pages into the story, it’s suffering.

This might be why The Clue of the Velvet Mask was the last book in the series to be ghost-written by Mildred Benson.  She had been “Carolyn Keene” for many years.  A change was needed, if this mystery is any evidence.

There are some excellent twists in the book, but it suffers from too much of the obvious.  Early on it’s too obvious who’s involved in the caper and it leads to a degree of frustration with the story.  As the stories go, this is middle of the road, while girls of about ten will probably get the most out of it.  Much older and it’s kind of hard to swallow that you can figure out the mystery so easily while the adults in the story can’t.


My Nancy Drew Book Reviews:

The Secret of the Old Clock ~ The Hidden Staircase ~ The Bungalow Mystery ~ The Mystery at Lilac Inn ~ The Secret of Shadow Ranch ~ The Secret of Red Gate Farm ~ The Clue in the Diary ~ Nancy's Mysterious Letter ~ The Sign of the Twisted Candles ~ The Password to Larkspur Lane ~ The Clue of the Broken Locket ~ The Message in the Hollow Oak ~ The Mystery of the Ivory Charm ~ The Whispering Statue ~ The Clue of the Tapping Heels ~ The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk ~ The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion ~ The Secret in the Old Attic ~ The Quest of the Missing Map ~ The Clue in the Crumbling Wall ~ The Mystery of the Tolling Bell ~ The Clue in the Old Album ~ The Ghost of Blackwood Hall ~ The Clue of the Leaning Chimney ~ The Secret of the Wooden Lady ~ The Clue of the Black Keys ~ The Mystery at the Ski Jump ~ The Clue of the Velvet Mask ~ The Ringmaster's Secret ~ The Scarlet Slipper Mystery ~ The Witch Tree Symbol


© 2009 Patti Aliventi

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): unknown