Nancy Drew #137 Black Rose, #138 Lost Gold, and #139 Candlelight Inn

In Nancy Drew #137, In Search of the Black Rose, Nancy, Bess, and George travel to England with Carson Drew to Oxford University.  While at a dinner, an arrow is shot into the room, landing on the table in front of Nancy.  The arrow carries a mysterious message about needing to find a black rose in order to right a wrong.  Nancy sets off in search of the black rose.

This book is better than The Riddle of the Ruby Gazelle in that I did not find the book boring.  Unfortunately, I also did not find it to be very interesting.  I had no idea what the point of the search for the black rose was.  Nancy also didn't know why.  She only knew that someone shot an arrow with a message on it about a black rose.  The message could have been a hoax.  I knew that the message wasn't a hoax simply because an entire Nancy Drew book would not have Nancy going on a false quest.  But I was given no reason to care at all, and it was not until the black rose was found that we learned the importance of it.  I almost didn't care even after I knew why the black rose was important.

This book also has a few too many characters.  The more characters present in a Nancy Drew book, the less I like it.

On page 40, Nancy says, "You don't usually need an elevator in a two-story building."  What about people in wheelchairs?  What's really strange is that Miss Innes is in a wheelchair, so I find it odd that Nancy thinks the elevator is strange.

On page 77, the police officer wonders how Miss Innes gets into her second-story room.  They notice a ramp to the second story, then they make note of the elevator.  Nancy points out that the elevator would be convenient for Miss Innes, so she might use it.  Obviously...

Near the end of the book, Nancy wants to meet with Tony in his room.  She approaches Tony's room, but she sees Mr. Sunderwirth.  She runs off and phones Tony, who arranges a meeting a long way off from his room for no apparent reason.  At the meeting place, Tony gets pushed off a balcony, is rescued, and then Nancy and he go to his room.  How completely stupid.  I get the idea that this scene and the inane discussions about the elevator were used to fill up pages to get the book long enough to publish.

I found In Search of the Black Rose to be a bit mediocre. 

In Nancy Drew #138, The Legend of the Lost Gold, Nancy, Bess, and George vacation at the Opa Tourist Lodge in Big Sur, California.  Soon after they arrive, their cottage is vandalized.  The owner, Didi Koulakis, believes that a nearby resort is responsible for the sabotage.  Nancy agrees to investigate.

While this book is yet another book centered around sabotage, I was actually quite relieved.  I wanted to read a straightforward story about sabotage after not liking #135 at all and finding #137 to be not very interesting.  There are worse things than sabotage, like very boring books.  Yay for sabotage!

The plot of The Legend of the Lost Gold is very similar to that of #107, The Legend of Miner's Creek.  What is different about this story is that someone dies, which seldom happens in the regular Nancy Drew series.

I greatly enjoyed The Legend of the Lost Gold.

In Nancy Drew #139, The Secret of Candlelight Inn, Marisa Henares and her boyfriend, Devon, work to get the Candlelight Inn ready for the Guiding Eyes foundation to occupy it.  Marisa's grandmother willed the inn to Guiding Eyes, while Marisa inherited the furniture.  Meanwhile, Marisa's friend, Eric, is accused of passing counterfeit $20 bills at a mall.  Nancy agrees to help Eric.  The trail leads to Candlelight Inn and an old case of counterfeit bills from 25 years ago.

I liked having the story center around counterfeiting.  We haven't had a Nancy Drew story dealing with counterfeiters in a very long time.  Unless I have completely forgotten something, I believe that this is only the second book in the main Nancy Drew series to deal with counterfeiters since #6 The Secret of Red Gate Farm was published in 1931.

As I read this book, I was sure I remembered the culprit, but then I gradually realized towards the end that I was wrong.  I was quite surprised at the culprit's identity.  A great mystery book keeps the reader guessing!

This is a thoroughly engaging book, and I highly recommend it.