#3 The Bungalow Mystery
Copyright 1960. Nancy is now “blue-eyed, with reddish-gold glints in her blond hair.” Helen is once again along for the ride. She and Nancy are vacationing in Twin Lakes at the Pinecrest Motel. These girls take a lot of vacations. At first I figured well, it’s the summer after graduating high school, Carson Drew is obviously rich, so Nancy gets a summer to do what she wants. But there are 56 books. I don’t remember any details apparently, does she eventually get a job? No wonder I so wanted to be Nancy (I will be saying this a lot, I think).
We are thrust immediately into adventure with the girls on a lake taking a pleasurable motorboat cruise that turns harrowing as a storm suddenly blows in. A log hits the boat, they start taking on water, then a wave knocks them overboard and Nancy tries to drag an incapacitated Helen to shore but struggles to stay afloat. At one point Helen begs Nancy to save herself! Go on without me! Pretty dark, Carolyn Keene, it’s only page 8!
Luckily the girls are rescued by Laura Pendleton who helps them into her boat and in the midst of paddling them to safety manages to intrigue Nancy with talk of a mystery. The girls survive and break into a bungalow to wait out the storm. (They get into some blankets and make hot cocoa and this is the first appearance of the word “Umm” instead of Yum. “Umm, this is good,” Nancy said contentedly. It’s jarring and weird.)
Turns out Laura is a recent orphan, waiting at Twin Lakes for the arrival of her new guardians. Sadly, the guardians seem like dicks but soon enough we learn they are not who they seem. They are really bank robbers or bank robbing accomplices anyway and they’re out to steal Laura’s mother’s jewels. And also bank notes. There is another abandoned cabin where they hid the real guardian and Nancy finds and saves him.
The titular bungalow has nothing much to do with the story overall and Nancy gets another gift at the end: one of the mother’s jewels, an aquamarine ring that she had admired earlier. Ummm.
