Not everyone in the family approves of Veronica's fiancé, though, especially because of the risk-taking behavior Xavier has introduced her to. And when one of the couple's sporting stunts almost ends in a serious accident, it's not clear whether it’s an unfortunate coincidence or whether someone really wants to stop the wedding from happening.
Still, the day of the wedding arrives. But when it comes time to exchange vows, the bride is nowhere to be seen. Is this just a case of cold feet? Or has one of the wedding guests created a cold-hearted plot? One thing’s for sure—Nancy won't rest until she finds out.
The above summary was provided by the publisher. I find it curious that the publisher's summary makes the plot sound like sabotage. We joked about it last year when the summary was first released.
On June 14, 2023, I wrote this:
Nancy Drew Diaries #25, What Disappears in Vegas..., will be published early next year. The synopsis begins, "Bess and George's cousin Veronica is getting married..." STOP! Allow me to guess. The wedding isn't going as planned. Could it be sabotage? Surely not, right? But if it is, Nancy will find out!
Before I decided to use the publisher's summary, I wrote my own brief summary. Here is mine:
Nancy and her friends travel to Las Vegas for the wedding of Veronica and Xavier. Veronica is Bess and George's cousin, and Bess will be one of the bridesmaids. Xavier owns Redd Zone, an extreme-sports complex in Chicago. All of the wedding events include extreme sports like BASE jumping, and Xavier films everything for social media. After an accident during one of the sports stunts, Veronica mysteriously disappears. Nancy and her friends search for clues.
This book has way too much exposition. The plot is mostly exposition up until page 70 when the suspense and mystery finally begins. The disappearance does not occur until page 99. I read these books to see what they are doing with Nancy Drew, and I will read the book regardless of whether it is good or bad. In this case, I was mostly bored with the story until page 65. When I reached page 65, I made this note to myself: "finally, some tension on page 65."
I was still a little bored with the story between pages 70 and 99. From page 99 on, I was interested and engaged. The story is 255 pages long. This means that I was nearly 40% through the book before I was interested in the plot. The reason Nancy Drew has been successful for over 90 years is because the plots have always started off fast. The readers get hooked by an interesting plot within the first chapter, often on the very first page. Instead, this book starts very slow and plods along until the mystery begins.
The book also has too many characters. I had trouble keeping track of them. It's not necessary to give the reader the names of everyone who comes in contact with Nancy. For instance, we don't need to know that the cab driver is named Mario.
I'm a little bewildered that Bess is described on page 1 as liking to "drive fast, take risks, and ride every roller coaster in a hundred-mile radius." On page 7, Nancy thinks to herself, "Sometimes it's hard, loving a daredevil."
I correctly deduced the culprit early in the story, long before the story becomes interesting. It's fairly easy to figure most of these books out.
These books tend to describe technology in an awkward fashion. From page 140:
I scrolled down through the list of messages, looking for the little paper clip icon that denotes an attachment.
I feel like the text should simply have stated, "I scrolled down through the list of messages looking for an attachment." I felt like I was reading a book from more than 25 years ago. Books from back then always had awkward explanations of technology.
A passage on page 157 gave me pause.
George looked at the assembled crowd. "I wouldn't say Macy's," she said. "I'd say more... JCPenney? Sears?"
That was where I stopped. My reaction was, "That's odd to mention Sears..." I then saw the next line.
Bess frowned at her. "Sears doesn't exist anymore, George," she said. "Anyway, what are you getting at?"
"I'm trying to think of places my grandma shops," George replied.
Ah, I see. When my local Sears store closed in 2017, I went by one time to see if there were any good deals (there weren't). All of the customers were using walkers or wheelchairs or were walking very slowly. Most were extremely elderly. It was a sad and depressing experience.
I rate this book as overall good. It is kind of boring, during the first part of the book, and then very good later in the story.
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