The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew, Book 1)

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Effect::: Nancy Drew's keen mind is tested when she searches for a missing will.User friendly.

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Customer Reviews

NOTE: The original version of "The Secret of the Old Clock" was written in 1930 and was 210 pages long, but the book I am reviewing is the rewritten version from 1959, and is only 180 pages long, including illustrations.

This book is first in the standard "yellow hardcover" Nancy Drew series, and is definitely one of the better books in the series, suitable to capture the attention of new readers and invite them into this classic world in which any criminal or fraudulent activities become targeted by the relentless teen sleuth!

The standard "yellow hardcover" series generally has three types of books, and this volume is of type number 2:

1. Totally new stories written and published between 1957 and the early 1980s. Most of the yellow books that fall into this category are not that great (for example, Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion). Instead of keeping focused on mystery and adventure, they tend to pause the story to include "educational material," and they tend to have over-complicated plots with too many characters that have very little to distinguish them from each other. They feel quite artificial in design and have a bland tone focused more on Nancy's perpetual schedule of appointments, with the mystery often dragged out over a matter of weeks because of trivial obstacles and distractions and runs of "bad luck." Try to identify which books were written in this fashion, and avoid them until you've read all those that were written in the other two styles. The original stories tended to all be much better than these re-writes, although a few of these new stories did turn out okay. One hint to identify which books were these weaker ones is that they were usually written in the late 1960s or early-mid 1970s, and the artwork is often inferior to that contained in the other volumes. Since some decent stories were also written during that same time period, a second hint is that the volumes that were originally written in the 1930s to early 1940s tended not to fare very well in their "yellow edition" re-writes - these primarily include many of the volumes numbered in the teens, but also apply to the majority of new volumes numbered in the late 30s to the early 50s. For example, "The Secret of the Golden Pavilion," which starts okay and then drags out into mediocrity. These types of books are usually readable, but are much slower-going and less interesting than the other two types of stories, described below. New readers may find them okay, but seasoned readers will feel at least a bit of disappointment.

2. Rewritten versions of the old, original stories that were first published in 1930. These types of stories (mostly those re-written before 1965) tend to be pretty good, retaining the ideas of the original novels, but in an updated form that is set in the latter half of the 20th Century rather than the first half of it. They are pretty fun books, even though the writing style is not as moody and detailed as the original, longer versions. Many of the books in this style keep the focus on adventure and mystery, sometimes including long action scenes (such as chases, suspenseful investigations, stakeouts, and faceoffs with criminals in perilous circumstances). These books keep the flavor of what made these stories good. The mystery is usually solved within a week or less, with memorable, swift-moving action and moodiness. The centerpiece of "The Secret of the Old Clock" is when Nancy finds and pursues criminals while looking for a vital clue that will restore swindled property back into the hands of its deserving owners, and this adventure scene moves along for dozens of pages without a break in the suspense, just as the original book had. This style of storytelling is much better than the newer "type 1" stories in which a brief, contrived-feeling event happens at the end of each chapter, only to be resolved quickly on the very next page. (That kind of storytelling was not very memorable.) "The Secret of the Old Clock" starts the "yellow hardcover" series very well, and this good start continues in volumes #2, 3, 6, 7, and 9 in a similar style of memorable storytelling that is faithful to the originals despite being shortened markedly. Those 6 books should probably be read first, and contain some of the best stories in the "yellow hardcover" series. The artwork tends to be quite good, as well!

3. Edited, shorter versions of the original stories that were published from the early 1930s until 1956. These are usually pretty good as well, so long as the original story was of good quality. Examples include "Clue in the Crumbling Wall" and "The Ghost of Blackwood Hall." This style usually covers those books that were originally published from the late 1940s and early 1950s that were re-released with mere editing instead of re-writing, and so these books often retain the flavor of the original stories quite well. These tend to be the volumes numbered in the 20s and early 30s. The quality of the artwork varies from good to fair, but since it's the story that counts, these stories are usually a good bet.

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