Review: The Secret in the Stars (Nancy Drew #156)

Well, I’m back after two years! Sorry, I’ve had a rough time, and have only gotten back into reading recently. Hopefully, I’ll actually manage to keep this blog running this time!

In "The Secret in the Stars", Nancy, Bess, and George go to a park for a "star watch" party hosted by Dr. Stars, a famous astronomer. When they arrive, the park is empty, and so is Dr. Stars' van. While investing in the van, Dr. Stars shows up and reveals that his telescope is missing its focus lens. Is somebody trying to sabotage the show?

Nancy Drew is awfully forgetful in this book. She forgets her notebook in a public park, she forgets to ask Bess a question that could have helped rule out a suspect, and she forgets to read Dr. Star’s biography on his website. That last one is particularly annoying, as had she actually read the biography, she would know that the Dr. Stars she’s been investigating was an imposter. Even worse, she clearly was on the page at some point, as she had it printed out.

Even if she weren’t so uncharacteristically forgetful, it really felt as if she could have solved the case a lot sooner than she did. It was blatantly obvious from the start that Dr. Stars was an imposter, but Nancy takes a painfully long time to start investigating him. I also have a really hard time accepting that nobody in River Heights knew what Dr. Stars looked like, even considering the year this book came out.

It doesn’t help that there’s a 20-year age difference between the fake and real Dr. Stars.  Dr. Stars even had a cartoon logo of himself on his van, showing that he looked nothing like the imposter, and only Nancy, her friends, and one of the suspects noticed. It doesn't make sense to me. It might be nitpicking, but it was quite distracting to me and took me out of the story several times.

The other major problem I have with this book is Bess’ actions during it. She acts like a creepy fan to a pair of celebrities, causing them to have to flee the place they are in twice. Why did she think that trying to take a photo of them without their permission would end well? While she is called out on this, and she does apologize for spying on the celebrities, it still feels out of character for Bess. Bess also decides it’s a good idea to try to crawl in through a window in the middle of the night while Nancy’s doing research online, scaring Nancy and nearly getting Bess bashed over the head. Apparently, she didn’t think of knocking on the window.

This book took me a long time to read, as I waited for Nancy to figure out the obvious. It doesn't help that the book is quite slow-paced. If I wasn't reading this for the blog, I wouldn't have bothered finishing it. The book does get a bit better when Nancy finally realizes that Dr. Stars is an imposter, but by then I was already bored of it. 

I would not recommend this book, as it's one of the worst digests I have read. Admittedly, it was probably not the best book to start off with, but I've got plenty more books to read. Up next, the Three Investigators Crimebusters! 

       

Rating 

2 out of 10

A Bunch of Ghostwriter Information

I'm having some personal problems, and that's why it's taken so long for me to post anything. I won't go into farther detail, but I will try to update this blog more often. I'm working on a review right now and hopefully will have it up soon.

I was looking through LinkedIn again and discovered a whole lot of Ghostwriter information. Not sure how I missed all this last time, but the profiles might not have been there.

First, we have two ghostwriters for the recent "Hardy Boys Adventures" series:
-Ruben Sack wrote #6,7,10,12,15. He also wrote the Diaries book "A Nancy Drew Christmas".
-Paul Crilley wrote #9.

We have three ghostwriters who I know wrote Nancy Drew books, but I'm not sure what ones:
-Louise Ladd was mentioned on someone's page as a Nancy Drew Ghostwriter.
-Janet Jones and Pamela Willis wrote a Nancy Drew Digest in 1996, no information on which one they wrote.
-Cathy Hapka wrote Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books.

Finally, Stacia Deutsch wrote the Nancy Drew Clue Crew book, "Pony Problems", and several other Nancy Drew books.

The Mystery Cartoon

Sorry about the lack of posts. I’ve been doing two things recently:

1. Playing Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, which you can expect a review for shortly.

2. Trying to track down a cartoon I watched when I was a kid. This cartoon has seemingly vanished into thin air, and I can’t find it anywhere. It’s like the show has ceased to exist. I’ve posted this in a few other places, but I figured I post this here, in hopes that someone reading this knows what which show I’m talking about:

“The show aired on TVO during the Early 2000s. I saw two episodes, and possibly the opening of a third. I don't think they were very long, and about halfway through, the host of TVO kids would interrupt the show to guess who the culprit was.

The characters were all anthropomorphic animals. The main character was probably a dog who was either a police or a private detective. He had a sidekick, who don't remember anything about, not even what animal he was. He and his sidekick might have been the only recurring characters. I'm going to give a summary of what I remember from each episode, but I could be wrong on some of the details. I'm not even sure that the third episode was of the same show.

Episode 1: I remember the opening of the episode the most as it terrified me. The episode started from the point of view of an inventor walking down a path in a park to his lab (I think), when he hears someone say something from behind him. He turns around to see a fist flying towards his face. He gets knocked out, and the plans for one of his inventions is stolen.

The detective and his sidekick arrived on the scene and talked to the inventor. They also took a look around the crime scene. They talked to the inventor about possible suspects, and he named three, all of them different animals. I don't think the detective ever talked to the suspects, nor did the suspects ever appear. One of the suspects was named "Captain Kangaroo". After this, the TVO kids host interrupts. He says that the culprit isn't Captain Kangaroo and references the old Captain Kangaroo show. After this, the show continued. It was revealed that the culprit was "Captain Kangaroo", as there was a series of tracks leading over a gate or a fence that revealed that the culprit was hopping.

Episode 2: The entire episode took place in a small apartment building. It started with a Porcupine couple arriving at their apartment after their vacation, only to discover that their apartment had been ransacked and that stuff had been stolen from the apartment. The detective and his sidekick arrived, and they talked to the porcupines. Then they talked to the porcupines' neighbors. Eventually they figured out the culprit was a skunk because all the other neighbors were hibernating when the crime happened.

Episode 3: It started with someone admiring a diamond at a museum. The museum's lights suddenly went off, and when they went back on, the diamond was gone. I believe I watched until the detective and his sidekick arrived, but I stopped watching soon after.

I have a list of shows its not: -Sherlock Hound -Dog Tracer -Dog City -Paw Patrol -The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog -T.U.F.F Puppy

I seriously have no idea what happened to the cartoon. I even emailed TVO, they couldn't help me either. To me it seems impossible that there's a TVO Kids show that only I watched.”

My Reading List

Sorry about the short post, but I figured I’d post my current reading list, as I’ll be reviewing these books on my blog once I’m finished with them. I’ll be going through this list in order, although the list might change at some point. I’m also currently playing the Nancy Drew game, “The Captive Curse”, and that will be reviewed on my blog as well.

My Current Reading List:

-Beyond the Law (Casefiles #55)

-Spiked (Casefiles #58)

-Open Season (Casefiles #59)

-Danger for Hire (Files #52)

-Make No Mistake (Files #56)

-Poison Pen (Files #60)

-The Children of the Lost (UB #34)

-Lost Brother (UB #35)

-Forever Lost (UB #36)

-Danger Overseas (Super Mystery 07 #2)

-Gold Medal Murder (Super Mystery 07 #4)

-Bonfire Masquerade (Super Mystery 07 #5)

-The Betrayal (Fear Street Sega #1)

-The Secret (Fear Street Sega #2)

-The Burning (Fear Street Sega #3)

-The Shadow Killers (Hardy Boys Digests #92)

-The Serpent's Tooth Mystery (Hardy Boys Digests #93)

-Danger on the Air (Hardy Boys Digests #94)

There will two posts this weekend to make up for the shortness of this one.