#36 Model Crime
#37 Model Menace
#38 Model Suspect
In #36 Model Crime, Bess and George's cousin, Sydney Marvin, is getting married to a reality television star, Vic Valdez. By page 52, nothing has happened at all. Unbelievably, I was not yet bored, but I realized that all I had read was description after description of reality television stars. Finally, something happens on page 57.
On page 125, we learn about Sydney's stalker. This seems like something that should have been mentioned in Chapter 1. The reason it wasn't mentioned is because that storyline was saved for the last two books in the trilogy. I feel like Model Crime was a waste of time.
Model Menace just goes on and on! The book has sabotage and more sabotage. Finally, two suspects are arrested, but then more sabotage occurs, so everyone realizes that the first two people are innocent. Another person is arrested. At the end of the book, Nancy figures out that all three are innocent (and apparently quite upset by the accusations) and that someone else is responsible. This is just great! It's like we wasted another entire book on this mess.
In #38 Model Suspect... oh, forget it. The camera man on the second book looks like a soldier with a military helmet and a deadly weapon. If he had gone on a rampage, we could have been saved from this third book. Anyway, the fire on page 67 is interesting. Unfortunately, not much else is. The rest of the book is sabotage and more sabotage. Wait, didn't I just say that about the previous book?
Model Suspect does get interesting towards the end, but once I knew the culprit's identity, I was bored again.
For hours after I finished the third book, I felt traumatized. I was reminded of how I felt after I finished Harriet Pyne Grove's Adventurous Allens series. Basically, I am scarred for life.
These three books are like the more boring sabotage Nancy Drew Digest books, except that they are even worse because all three books tell the same story over and over again. I will never read this trilogy again. The entire thing is a big convoluted mess and should have been written as a single-volume story, not three excruciatingly long books.
3 comments:
I think what turned me off to Nancy Drew Detective was that I liked the original concept design that the first 20 books or so had. When they started using photographs, I got turned off because it reminded me of the the later originals (after #100 or so) which I didn't like. Do you know why they changed concepts?
After reading your great posts, I might have to give it a try again.
I don't know why they changed the cover art, but usually, publishers make changes like that to update a series and help with sales. I also like the cover art design and logo for the first 28 books better. I wish that they hadn't changed it.
The cover art for this trilogy is especially stupid. Perhaps I'm strange, but the studio lights in the cover art for #36 make me think of handcuffs. Then #37 has a camera man who looks like a soldier. The books have very strange images on them.
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