Hunting for an Inheritance on a Haunted Lake
It’s been so long since I read most of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that, even when I know I read a title in the past, I don’t remember much about it. The Clue of the Broken Locket is a perfect example. I know I read it when I was a kid, but I couldn’t have told you a thing about it before I picked it up. Yet, as I read, parts of this Nancy Drew adventure came back to me.
This case starts when Carson Drew, Nancy’s father, asks her to go to Misty Lake, in Maryland, to open a cabin that a client is renting out. Nancy is only too happy to help out, especially when her dad mentions that something scared the cabin’s normal caretaker and that the person renting the cabin has an interesting story.
When Nancy and her friend Bess and George arrive, they learn that people have started seeing a tour boat that sank years earlier on the lake, and this ghost ship is scaring visitors and residence alike. Meanwhile, when they meet the young woman who has rented the cabin, they discover that she is looking for a family treasure hidden decades earlier. Can Nancy solve these cases?
Actually, there is even more going on here, with several other mysterious things going on. The amount of coincidence involved in the story gets a bit overwhelming at times if you stop and think about it, but I didn’t on this reread. I just sat down and enjoyed the adventure. Figuring out how it was all going to come together kept me turning pages. All the action helped as well. Something is always happening to Nancy and her friends. It’s no wonder I thought being knocked unconscious wasn’t a big deal as a kid.
As always, the characters are thin. I actually felt like Nancy, Bess, and George were a bit better defined as characters early on in this book, and I was enjoying it, but as the action ramped up and the number of characters increased in the second half of the book, the emphasis was on the story again. Still, this didn’t bother me much as a kid, so I’m sure kids won’t mind now.
I will say I found this one a bit more dated than some of the others. After all, part of the plot revolves around counterfeited records, and the characters eat luncheon. It makes sense because this updated edition came out in the 1960’s. It’s a time capsule that kids won’t mind as much as long as they know to expect it.
It was fun to revisit Nancy in The Clue of the Broken Locket. The plot should keep kids of all ages engaged as they watch Nancy work to solve this mystery.
I love a good Nancy Drew and this sounds especially fun. I'm sure I read this one as a kid but like you I have no memory of it!
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