Dana Girls #23 The Sierra Gold Mystery

In Dana Girls #23, The Sierra Gold Mystery, the Danas fly into San Francisco, where Louise learns that her sapphire ring has been stolen.  Meanwhile, another traveler, Janet Crane, asks the girls to find her missing grandfather.  The girls visit Aunt Carol, who tells them about a buried chest of gold nuggets in gold country.  The girls have three mysteries to solve, so this book should have been called A Three-Cornered Mystery.  But wait, never mind...

On pages 17 and 18, the theory of the lost continent of Lemuria is presented as if fact.  The Lemurians are mentioned as giants who came to California and discovered gold.  What was Harriet Adams thinking?  The Stratemeyer Syndicate mystery books are typically strongly grounded in reality.  The lost continent of Lemuria and the Lemurian giants are not reality.  This is bizarre.

On pages 82 and 83, a man named Dusty holds back a landslide at a tunnel entrance with his body so that Janet can be rescued.  That is improbable enough, but then... After Janet is pulled out, Jean makes Dusty stay in place so that she can crawl inside and look around.  She doesn't get in a hurry, either.  This is dangerous and stupid.  Was Harriet on crack when she wrote this book?

The landslide scene reminds me of a scene from Sweet Valley High #115 and #116.  It's not good when a Dana Girls book reminds me of the Sweet Valley High Death Valley books, which I consider to be the worst books in that series.

I quit reading halfway through the book.  It's not that the book is necessarily bad.  I was a bit bored and just wasn't getting anything out of it.  I have better things to do.