Girl Detective

Riverboat Ruse, from the Girl Detective series

Nancy Drew, Girl Detective replaced the long-running Nancy Drew mysteries series, which began in 1930. This new series is written in first person narration, from Nancy's point of view, and features updated and overhauled versions of the main Nancy Drew characters. Nancy Drew in this version is a less than perfect teenage girl prone to forgetfulness, an object of jokes, and interested in other subjects over mysteries. Bess Marvin has gained skills in mechanics and computers and is no longer slightly overweight, and described as fashionable and trendy. George Fayne has become moody and sloppily dressed in this series, always more interested in tech and sarcastic retorts than solving mysteries. New secondary characters are introduced to populate River Heights and appear over multiple books, adding a framework to Nancy's world. Bess and George also gain siblings and family members with careers. Though this series has many improvements over the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, the drastic change in the main characters' personalities was hard for many readers to accept. In 2013 Nancy Drew, Girl Detective was replaced with the Nancy Drew Diaries series.

History

In the 90s and early 2000s, sales of the Nancy Drew novel series began to drop. At a Nancy Drew conference held in early 2005 in New York, a Simon and Schuster representative said that the digests had been selling about 30,000 copies. In order to boost sales, the original series was ended and the Nancy Drew series re-launched.

This new incarnation of Nancy Drew was initially supervised by Bonnie Bryant (Jacobson).^[1] The first volume of the new series, Without a Trace, reached the New York Times bestseller list in the Children’s Series category and #113 on USA Today’s Top 150 sellers list due to the .99 cents introductory price.^[2]

Differences from the original series

The publisher describes the series in the following way:

List of books in the series

Books in the Nancy Drew: Girl Detective are released in paperback format by Simon & Schuster.^[4] From 2008 to 2012, the mysteries were presented as 3-book mini arcs, drawing the mystery out over three distinct, but linked, titles. The re-designed covers feature model Jessica Silverman as Nancy Drew.

Trivia

• In addition to the above list 3 Super Mysteries have been released. Where's Nancy? June 2005; Once Upon a Crime June 2006; Real Fake July 2007.
• Nancy Drew, Girl Detective Ghost Stories was published August 2008. The four stories are Manga Mayhem, America's Got Terror!, Visitor from Beyond, and Carnival of Fear.
• #7 listed in Library of Congress as The Riddle of the Relic
• The Stolen Relic and The Scarlet Macaw Scandal were both written for the original series, but re-written for the Girl Detective series
• Working titles for #12 were The Secret of the Library Clock and Out of Time
• Working title for the Sabotage Mystery Trilogy was Carnival Mystery Trilogy. This title was on the first cover art posted on-line at Simon and Schuster's website.
• Pageant Perfect Crime was misspelled as Pagent Perfect Crime in the title list for the Girl Detective series in the beginning of many of the books.
• The contents page numbers in Serial Sabotage do not correspond to the correct chapter and page numbers.

List of graphic novels series

Graphic novels series were released in paperback and hardcover format by Papercutz.

1. The Demon of River Heights (Feb 2005)
2. Writ in Stone (July 2005)
3. The Haunted Dollhouse (Nov 2005) On Nostalgia week, there is a series of crimes predicted by a mysterious doll house, and it latest prediction shows that Nancy will be murdered!
4. The Girl Who Wasn't There (Feb 2006) Nancy befriends a girl on tech support, who gets kidnapped!
5. The Fake Heir (Apr 2006) Has Nancy lost her ability to solve a mystery?
6. Mr. Cheeters is Missing (Jul 2006) Nancy has to find a missing pet chimpanzee.
7. The Charmed Bracelet (Oct 2006) When an important electronic chip goes missing, Nancy receives a mysterious charm bracelet, each charm representing a crime!
8. Global Warning (Feb 2007)
9. Ghost in the Machinery (May 2007)
10. The Disoriented Express (Aug 2007)
11. Monkey-Wrench Blues (Nov 2007)
12. Dress Reversal (Feb 2008)
13. Doggone Town (May 2008)
14. Sleight of Dan (Aug 2008)
15. Tiger Counter (Nov 2008)
16. What Goes Up... (Feb 2009)
17. Night of the Living Chatchke (May 2009)
18. City Under the Basement (August 2009)
19. Cliffhanger (Nov 2009)
20. High School Musical Mystery (February 2010) This and the following title include The Dana Girls as characters. Louise and Jean Dana featured in a mystery series by Carolyn Keene, last published in 1979.
21. High School Musical Mystery Part II "The Lost Verse" (May 2010)

Setting

The Nancy Drew: Girl Detective novels are usually based in the fictional town of River Heights, which is located in Illinois. Other fictional cities that are mentioned are Silver Creek, East Bank, Cutler Falls, and Trib Falls, which are all near River Heights and the Muskoka River. River Heights is a 1-hour drive east of the real city, Chicago, which has been mentioned frequently.

Main characters

• Nancy Drew is an 18-year-old girl who lives with her father in River Heights. When she was only 3-years-old, her mother died, something with which she has had trouble coming to terms. She and her two best friends Bess and George and boyfriend Ned Nickerson solve mysteries in River Heights and places they visit. Nancy is confident, determined (which her dad calls a 'stubborn streak'), and sometimes forgetful when thinking about a case, but her friends help her out so she stays on track. Nancy has shoulder-length, strawberry blond hair, blue eyes, and is said to be 5'8". She thinks style is okay but prefers comfort.
• Carson Drew, Nancy's father, is a lawyer. He is famous in River Heights for being good at solving crimes, a gift he passed down to his daughter.
• Georgia "George" Fayne, is one of Nancy's best friends. She is an athletic tomboy who is really good with modern technology. She has brown eyes, short brown hair and is tall and thin and doesn't care about fashion at all.
• Bess Marvin is Nancy's other best friend and George's cousin, though they don't have much in common except their friendship to Nancy. Bess is flirty and, according to Nancy, seems perfect in every way. She has blue eyes, blond hair, and curves, unlike her cousin George, who has brown eyes, short, brown hair, and is skinny.
• Ned Nickerson is Nancy's boyfriend. He sometimes comes along with Nancy on her cases. Ned is in college and tends to be casual. He works for his father's newspaper, the River Heights Bugle.
• Deirdre Shannon is Nancy's arch nemesis and former classmate. Deirdre's grade school nickname was Dee-Dee. If she is called Dee-Dee, she becomes irritated. Deirdre and Nancy's dislike for each other began when they were in first grade. Deirdre's father, like Nancy's, is also a lawyer in River Heights. She has a big crush on Ned Nickerson even though he is dating Nancy. Sometimes Deirdre tries hard to be as obnoxious as possible, and is very competitive with Nancy. With her black hair, green eyes and pale skin, she looks like a Cruella de Vil Jr. It is hinted that she is jealous because sometimes when Deirdre sees Nancy, she says, "Well, if it isn't the famous Nancy Drew!".
• Harold Safer is Nancy's neighbor. He owns the town's cheese shop and likes sunsets and Broadway musicals. In the first book, Without a Trace, Harold is accused of smashing a zucchini patch. Nancy and her friends help him prove his innocence.
• Hannah Gruen has been living with the Drew family ever since Nancy's mother died. Hannah is their housekeeper and is like a member of the family. She is protective of Nancy, sometimes even when she is working on a case.
• Chief McGinnis is the local police chief. Unlike the old Nancy Drew stories, in which he and Nancy had a friendly relationship, their relationship is more antagonistic in the new series. Nancy beats him to crime scenes and solves mysteries before him, so he is jealous of her success.
• Charlie Adams works at Carr's Garage and half of the time he doesn't even charge Nancy because he is in love with her.
• Luther Eldridge is an expert on River Heights history and he often helps Nancy on her cases. Nancy likes spending time with Luther because she can learn interesting things from him. She was a friend of his daughter but Luther's entire family died (in a car accident when Nancy was still young.
• Mrs. Mahoney is the wealthiest person in River Heights and the owner of Rackham Industries. Her husband's ancestors were the Rackham Gang. The Rackham Gang was part of the great River Heights Heist and escaped with the money on the Muskoka River (As explained in Book # 6)
• Jake Perrault is a young, extremely handsome movie star who is the son of famous mystery writer Hazel Perrault. All girls swoon over him but he is in love with Nancy who ignores him.

References