Nancy Drew #140 Door-to-Door Deception, #141 Wild Cat Crime, and #142 Capital Intrigue

In Nancy Drew #140, The Door-to Door Deception, Nancy and Bess have agreed to volunteer for an after-school program after George insists that they join her.  One of the volunteers resents the presence of the girls from the nicer part of town, and one of the children appears to be playing pranks on others.  Soon, the girls learn about a string of home burglaries, and members of the after-school program are suspected.  Nancy also wonders whether another after-school program could be to blame for some of the problems.

Mr. Drew makes a very strange comment on page 34.  He says, "This string of burglaries is the sort of crime that's best handled by the police."  Of course Nancy has never solved that sort of thing herself, right?  After all, she's only on mystery case #140 at this point.  Mr. Drew acts like Nancy has no experience, which is very odd.  This type of comment makes it obvious that the books were written by a number of different people, and some of them knew very little about Nancy Drew.

I thought about this book as compared to #115 The Suspect in the Smoke, which also deals with a recreation center and sabotage.  This book is much more interesting.  This book has more characterization, and two people, one of the volunteers and one child, at the center are very resentful and interested in causing trouble. 

The Door-to-Door Deception is a good example of how one shouldn't judge a book by its cover.  I don't particularly care for the cover art.  I expected not to like the book and was pleasantly surprised.  I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Nancy Drew #141, The Wild Cat Crime, Nancy and George work as summer interns at a local television station.  Their supervisor is reporter Christy Kelley, who mostly ignores the girls and seems to be jealous of Nancy.

The girls suggest that Christy cover the story of the birth of the four cougar cubs at the zoo.  The story explodes when all four cubs are stolen!  The director of the zoo asks Nancy to investigate.  Christy launches her own investigation as well.  Soon, someone frames Nancy with the theft, and she must now prove her innocence.

I really enjoyed this one.  I couldn't remember the culprit, and the book kept me guessing.  I thought I had guessed the culprit, but I was wrong.  The solution surprised me.

In Nancy Drew #142, The Case of Capital Intrigue, George works as an intern as a photographer's assistant at the White House, and she has invited Nancy to visit her.  A priceless gold statue gifted to the United States from San Valente suddenly disappears, and Nancy must discover the culprit's identity before the theft creates an international incident.

I did not want to read this book because I did not like the setting.  A book set at the White House makes the setting too real and makes me think of current world events.  I don't want books to remind me of that sort of thing. 

I wanted to skip the book.  Instead, I read the book as fast as I could, skimming some parts, and finished it in less than one day.  The story seemed okay, but I still didn't care for it.  I could not overcome my aversion to the setting.