I read part of this book a couple of years ago, but never finished it due to finding it dull. I decided to give the book a second chance, and I still don’t like it very much.
In this book, Nancy investigates a series of warehouse robberies. All the warehouses were using the same security system, installed by Hayward Security Systems. This is causing the owner of Haywood Security, Tom Hayward, to lose money, and he asks Nancy to investigate the crimes.
Nancy Drew’s characterization is a bit off in this book. She’s shown multiple times getting scared or nervous and ends up trembling at one point. At one point she briefly gets scared by a guy in a Halloween mask. This was the first Files book I read in a while, but I don’t recall Nancy acting like this in other books. She was always more confident then this. It’s not as much of a problem as it is in the current Diaries series, but it’s still noticeable.
Nancy has a new assistant in this book, Cindy Larson, a high school student who’s a fan of hers. Nancy Drew invites Cindy to help her on the case after Cindy follows her to a crime scene. Along the way, Cindy learns that detective work isn’t all excitement and that it’s also more dangerous then she thought. Cindy is the best part of the book, and it’s a shame she didn’t appear in any other books.
At the start of the book, she asks Nancy about the events of “The Suspect Next Door”, and the end of the book contains a preview of a River Heights book, so maybe she made an appearance in that series?
Part of the reason why I found the book so dull the first time I read it is that amount of filler in this book. A lot of the book is Nancy Drew reading newspaper articles and surveilling the warehouse district where the robberies happened. At the start of the book, Nancy tells Cindy that detective work can be quite boring. It seems that was a warning to the reader.
Brenda Carlton is one of my favourite Files characters, unfortunately, she is pretty much wasted in this book. Despite claiming that she’ll solve the case before Nancy does, she vanishes for most of the second half of the book, only to end up as the villain’s hostage. She does have a decent role in the first half, but it felt like she could have been left out of the book altogether.
Despite the villains seemingly being professional thieves, they aren't very dangerous, and there's not much action in the book. There's an explanation for this, but it's not a very good one.
Near the end, we discover that the gang of professional thieves was really just Nancy’s employer and a henchman. I really don’t like Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew books where their employer turns out to be the bad guy. This sort of twist almost always leads to an anti-climax, and this book is no exception. Instead of Nancy Drew facing off against a gang, she faces off against one person at the end.
Not to mention that the ending involves Brenda Carlton somehow sneaking past a whole ton of police officers. Did she teleport in? Also, I’m not sure why she decided to congratulate Nancy on solving the case right as Nancy is confronting the villain.
Rating
3 out of 10
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