Nancy Drew #100 Secret in Time and #101 Missing Millionairess

In Nancy Drew #100, A Secret in Time, Nancy's Crowley clock, her souvenir from her very first case, is on display in an antique show at River Heights High School.  During the show, a valuable antique brooch is stolen, and Nancy later finds the brooch hidden in her clock.  Meanwhile, George has become an ice cream truck driver and sports a new mobile phone.

Nancy's behavior is a bit odd at times.  She is very careful not to touch the brooch so that the police can check for fingerprints.  But later on page 104, Nancy finds a knife stuck through a warning note and into the front wall of her home.  What does Nancy do?  She immediately removes the knife with her bare hand, not thinking of fingerprints.  Since no prints were found on the brooch, most likely the knife also would have no prints, but Nancy should have been more careful with the evidence.

Nancy twice hides information from Carson and Hannah, but the information gets revealed almost immediately, making Nancy look a bit stupid.  Nancy, Bess, and George are almost pushed off of a bridge by another vehicle, and Nancy withholds that information from Carson and Hannah.  When the officers arrive at Nancy's home to begin their surveillance, they end up telling Carson and Hannah what happened.  Later, Nancy doesn't tell them about the knife, and that information also comes out shortly.

Nancy's clock is also strange, because its description does not match the clock from The Secret of the Clock.  Yet, the two clocks are supposed to be the same clock.  Hmm.

Nancy, Bess, and George are placed in a very dangerous situation near the end of the story which would result in certain death.  Strangely, the villain conveniently behaves in a very stupid fashion which causes the police to discover the girls just in time.

While I enjoyed this story, I found the solution to this mystery to be rather unsatisfying.  Much of the fun in reading a mystery is in trying to guess which of the suspects is the villain.  In this story, none of the suspects turns out to be the culprit.  One of them is guilty of unsavory behavior, but he did not steal the brooch.  The villain's name does not appear until page 119, only around ten pages before he is revealed to be the culprit.  I so very much did not care that this random person seemingly thrust into the story is the person who stole the brooch.  I also found Nancy's lengthy question and answer session with the villain to be quite boring.

In Nancy Drew #101, The Mystery of the Missing Millionairess, Nancy poses as a student at Brookfield Academy as she investigates what happened to Veronica Armand.  Veronica is the daughter of a famous actor, and she has disappeared.  The clues point to a jealous rival as well as the director of the school.  While Bess and George appear in this mystery, their input is minimal, and Nancy mostly sleuths by herself.

The book begins with a very lengthy and rather boring description of everything you could possibly want to know about Brookfield Academy.  I was not able to get into the story until the author had exhausted that description.

A certain intersection is described as being just one mile from the school.  Strangely, it takes Nancy ten minutes to drive to that intersection.  What, was Nancy driving only six miles per hour?  This is illogical, unless River Heights and the surrounding area are much more densely populated than they seem.  Perhaps Nancy had to wait at multiple slow traffic lights.  I get the idea, though, that Brookfield Academy is not in a densely populated area.

Nancy's rescue of Veronica is quite thrilling.

The reveal of the villain is quite satisfying, since Nancy interacted with the villain throughout the book.  In stark contrast to A Secret in Time, the end of story explanatory information flows much better in this book.  The villain's motive is very interesting.

This book was fun to read.