0:02

This is the Head Gun podcast. While.

0:06

Enjoying craig believe the joy of

0:08

discovery is crucial to enjoying any

0:10

well told tail. They will not

0:12

shy away from spoiling specific story

0:14

beats when necessary. Plus. These

0:16

are books you should have read by now. Everybody.

0:43

Welcome to Overdo. It's a podcast

0:45

about the books you've been meaning

0:47

to read. My name is Craig,

0:49

My name is Andrew. That's.

0:51

Nice estuary to me that's our mystery.

0:54

These are these are. this is the

0:56

non mystery proportion of the broke. The

0:58

rest of it. super mysterious, very mysterious.

1:00

Every week. Usually. One of

1:03

us reads a book that we've never before.

1:05

then we tell the other person about it.

1:07

You get to come on for the right.

1:09

Ah this this month is different and this

1:11

this with this recording is different. I'm not

1:13

is different because it's a month of sequels

1:15

as things that we've. Sort. Of visited

1:17

before Yeah and this show is different

1:19

cause we're doing in front of a live

1:21

studio audience. our patriotic chat. Yup, It's

1:24

are bonus episode for Help Me Wary. The

1:27

February. Nice to see a February Twenty

1:29

ninth Word We're getting it in. Welcome to

1:31

Leap Day. Which

1:33

apparently in Roman times for a period

1:36

of time, they just they didn't have

1:38

January or February twenty ninth. They just

1:40

did like the Twenty Fourth twice or

1:42

something. Yeah. I mean same

1:44

basic thing. Is where I learned. I

1:46

just wonder like can we are just make every.

1:49

Was. The math can we are just make every

1:51

day like a few seconds longer and just avoid

1:53

this salt thing. That. Could have

1:55

been what we did. In. But.

1:58

i also by the pilots By the time

2:00

you get to February 28th on

2:03

a leap year, you're like

2:05

getting pretty out of whack. Yeah.

2:08

Spinning around the earth wise. Yeah. You

2:11

got to reset everything. I just feel like we should

2:13

even it out a little bit as well. Okay.

2:16

Well, we can get to that after we solve this

2:18

week's mystery. Like Andrew said, this is

2:20

our bonus episode, so thanks to all of our- Everybody in

2:23

the chat is pointing out that it was screw up sunrise

2:25

and sunset and like- I

2:29

just don't understand- We can

2:32

all just wake up at

2:34

like four in the morning

2:36

on some days

2:38

because that's when the sun is up

2:40

now. Hey, I am a big fan

2:42

of the professional actress Amy Adams. I

2:44

think she's very talented. There's

2:47

a movie called Leap Year or something that

2:49

she's in. It's not a good movie. It's

2:51

about leap years. I think

2:53

she goes on a journey on a leap

2:55

year. It's not

2:57

good. Please

3:00

make a better leap year movie,

3:02

Hollywood. Welcome to

3:04

our book podcast where this time for

3:06

our bonus recording, thank you patrons, we

3:08

are talking about Nancy Drew

3:11

and the mystery at Lilac Inn

3:15

by Carolyn Keene, aka

3:18

who, Andrew? Mildred Wirt

3:20

Benson. Mildred

3:22

Wirt Benson? Well she's credited as

3:24

Mildred Wirt in all the- Oh,

3:26

okay. Yeah, I guess

3:29

her full Christian name

3:31

is Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson. Okay,

3:34

fair enough. We

3:37

talked about the first Nancy

3:39

Drew book, Secret of the Old Clock. Secret

3:41

of the Old Clock, episode 475. 475

3:45

and in that episode we talked a bit about

3:48

how Nancy Drew is a franchise from our

3:50

old friends at the Stradimire Syndicate. Oh yeah.

3:53

The only book publishing outlet that

3:55

also sounds like organized crime. The

3:58

only one. The only one. This

4:02

the Stradimire family loved

4:04

to write sort of kid

4:07

and I don't I

4:09

don't like why a is not right. It didn't

4:11

exist. Kid and teen and

4:13

tween series fiction but

4:16

they didn't like to pay people they didn't want any

4:18

of the authors to get too big for their britches

4:21

and start asking for things like money so they

4:24

had a every series had like

4:26

its own credited author and then a

4:29

million ghost writers here. You're working behind

4:31

the scenes. Yep. So Edward Stradimire came

4:33

up with like the outlines for the

4:35

first four Nancy Drew books

4:37

including this one but the

4:39

actual like manuscript the book itself was written

4:42

by Mildred Wert so she is commonly

4:45

considered to have like pioneered

4:47

Nancy's voice and her outlook

4:50

and her sense of adventurousness.

4:52

Yep. And she wrote most

4:55

of the first like two

4:57

dozen ish. Most of them. Yeah. A

5:00

Nancy Drew books not including books

5:02

eight nine and 10 were true written by a

5:05

man Walter Carrigg who as

5:07

we talked a little bit about last time changes

5:09

the way that Nancy sounded and

5:12

the things that the books were about. Well

5:15

and we got a question in the chat

5:17

from Stephanie and the racism. So yeah so

5:19

these books this one came out in

5:22

what 1930 I think many

5:24

of the first four all came out in 1930. And

5:27

many of them were

5:29

substantially revised starting in

5:31

the late 1950s into the 60s. This

5:34

one got its revision in 1961. I

5:39

read conflictingly that the revision

5:41

was done by Harriet Stradimire

5:43

Adams herself who did the first two

5:45

revisions but I also saw that this

5:47

one was credited to Patricia doll. So

5:49

I don't know it's a syndicate

5:52

man. Yeah like Harriet Stradimire

5:54

Adams who's a daughter I think

5:56

of Edward. Stradimire. Yeah she eventually

5:59

came to. write most

6:01

of the Nancy

6:03

Drew stuff. Her

6:06

dad was kind of not involved in it after

6:08

the first four and she

6:10

was coming up with ideas for a lot of

6:12

the early ones even when like Mildred Wirt was

6:14

still writing them and then later

6:17

once you get into the 50s and

6:19

60s she's just writing the books directly.

6:21

Still has Carolyn Keene. So

6:25

the revisions that happened in the 50s and 60s

6:27

from my understanding

6:29

to a couple of things. One is

6:31

they clean up some of the plotting

6:34

and make them a little more

6:36

exciting. This book has car

6:39

accidents, explosions, a

6:42

submarine, a time

6:44

bomb. Like this

6:46

book is a

6:48

Batman story. Identity

6:51

theft. Stolen

6:54

the Hymen. This book

6:56

has a lot. And

6:59

it is my understanding that not all of

7:01

those elements though some of those elements were

7:03

in the original version. I did

7:06

find an article called What Would

7:08

Nancy Do? by Amy Benfer on

7:10

salon.com from 1999.

7:13

People have been talking about

7:15

this for a while I guess. That

7:18

calls out this book as being

7:20

a particularly bad offender in the

7:23

like racial and social

7:25

lidsensitivity and slurs that

7:28

were common to the

7:30

OG Nancy stories. Yeah because I was

7:32

gonna ask why of all the Nancy

7:34

Drew sequels you picked this one and

7:36

I did is it because it's the

7:38

most racist one? No I did not.

7:41

I'll read this thing from the

7:43

Salon article and then I'll go to my

7:45

source for why I picked this one. Okay

7:47

great. So this is a

7:50

paragraph from the Salon article. stained

8:00

allegory about how one cannot get

8:02

good household help. Nancy,

8:04

in need of a temporary housekeeper while

8:07

faithful servant Hannah Gruin tends to a

8:09

sick sister, must go to an employment

8:11

agency. She interviews and dismisses by

8:14

turn a, quote, colored woman who is,

8:16

quote, dirty and disheveled, an Irish woman

8:18

who is most, quote, unreasonable, and a,

8:21

quote, scotch lassie who doesn't know a

8:23

thing about cooking. The villain in this

8:25

novel is a, quote, dark,

8:28

complexioned girl who also fails to

8:30

find employment at Drew Manor, and

8:33

she solves the mystery in part by seeing

8:35

a maid go to a dress shop and

8:38

she says surely a girl in her circumstances

8:40

cannot afford to buy dresses at such a

8:42

place as this. Nancy.

8:44

I'm just,

8:47

I don't even know how the plot

8:49

of this works if the villain, because

8:51

part of the thing is

8:53

that the villain is impersonating Nancy Drew.

8:56

This book has a lot going on.

8:58

Yeah. This book rules,

9:00

I think, actually. Yeah. But

9:03

no, but there's like the whole, the whole

9:06

like needing to find a replacement for Hannah

9:08

does not happen at all in this book.

9:10

And that seems to be like the substantial

9:13

plot change that

9:16

refocuses everything. So, so

9:18

yeah, I'm glad that we do

9:21

not have any of that nonsense. There's like

9:23

a, you noted like there's one character who's

9:25

like dark and wiry towards the

9:27

end of the book. Yeah. Which,

9:30

you know. It could be,

9:32

it could mean a lot of things, I guess, but it

9:34

was the only, it was the only one of those I

9:36

picked up. And I guess I'm just glad, given

9:38

all the stuff that's in Nancy

9:40

Drew and the mystery of Lylike Inn, I'm

9:42

glad that we did not choose to read the

9:45

later title, Nancy Drew and the Lost

9:48

Cause of the Confederacy. No, Cassandra, there

9:55

is no blackface in this novel, at least

9:57

as written, because we both read the 1961. one

10:00

version so I don't know what happens in the 1930 version.

10:02

I did pick this book so

10:07

this book was also our patrons

10:09

choice book for the month of

10:11

February. Thank you patrons for choosing

10:14

this among some similar kind of

10:16

pulpy sequels that we had

10:18

on offer and when I

10:20

was searching for what to include in that

10:22

poll I knew I wanted to do

10:24

Nancy Drew so I was searching for

10:26

best Nancy Drew stories and I wound

10:28

up on crimereads.com. It's

10:31

an April 2023 article by

10:33

Jen Fisher with Doc Wyatt

10:35

and 13 unforgettable Nancy Drew

10:37

stories including some action

10:39

figures inspired by those stories and

10:42

here's here is the the graph

10:44

that they gave me for this book

10:47

okay. Batman has

10:49

the Joker. Holmes

10:51

had Moriarty. The

10:54

closest Nancy had to an evil

10:56

nemesis is Gay Moro a con

10:58

woman and stage former actress

11:02

who serves crime in prison for

11:04

check fraud and larceny who appears

11:06

in the mystery at lilac Inn.

11:08

Now out of jail she uses

11:10

skills learned during her time in

11:12

the theater to stage a haunting,

11:14

go undercover and even disguise herself

11:17

to impersonate Nancy using her charge

11:19

plate. She really does have

11:21

the the vibe of you know

11:23

in a episodic crime procedural like

11:26

once or twice a season of recurring

11:28

villain shows up yeah sweeps or whatever

11:30

like that that seems Gay

11:32

Moro could have been that. Yes bones

11:35

is nemesis muscles or

11:38

something like that. Sadly Joyce skin Moro

11:46

does not appear in other books but I

11:48

was like you know going down that list.

11:50

I throw her in prison and throw away

11:52

the key at the end of this I

11:54

assume. Yeah and I just liked

11:56

the idea of having of reading

11:59

a book that had a a Bizarro

12:01

Nancy or some sort of evil Nancy to contend with.

12:07

And while I did just

12:09

kind of spoil the book, it's also

12:11

100 years old and that's fine. And

12:14

I did, it was my experience reading this book

12:19

like wondering how this

12:21

character would like show up.

12:23

Because the book is not upfront with you about

12:25

whether or not this person exists and what her

12:27

deal is for a very long time. So

12:30

I did have, I was like trying to

12:32

solve the book based on what I'd read

12:34

about it, which was a

12:36

fun experience. Where I know

12:39

a twist, I know, maybe not even a twist,

12:41

but I know some character is

12:43

going to be revealed and then you're like

12:45

reading the whole mystery wondering when that reveal's gonna happen.

12:47

But you had no idea about that. Yeah, no, I

12:50

didn't know anything about this book and when we did

12:52

the first Nancy Drew episode, you read the book and

12:54

I was just kind of along for the ride. So

12:56

I was getting to experience a lot of stuff for

12:58

myself for the first time, which is fun. But

13:01

yeah, I think I was expecting, there's

13:04

a scene kind of early-ish where

13:06

one, where a

13:08

character has some diamonds and

13:10

they're going to sell the diamonds so

13:14

that they can keep running the

13:16

lilac in. Which

13:18

is an enterprise that she has just set

13:21

out on with her soon to be husband.

13:24

And boy, they don't seem very good at it. We'll talk about

13:26

that some more later. We will talk about their bad business plan.

13:30

But there's a scene where they are showing the

13:33

diamonds around and the lights go out. And

13:35

then the lights come back on and the diamonds

13:37

are gone. And I thought there was gonna be

13:39

a little bit of a, Like

13:42

a locked room. Murder on the Orient

13:44

Express kind of situation. Where

13:46

it would be a locked room thing. But no,

13:48

it's like, oh, there is a

13:50

secret trapdoor that somebody dropped a

13:53

bunch of clues in front of that

13:55

Nancy can find it. The book just like goes and

13:57

goes. It never stops introducing new

13:59

things. No! Until the very end,

14:01

there's new stuff the whole way.

14:04

Again, to compare it to a

14:06

modern crime procedural, you

14:09

know how in the investigatory part

14:11

of the show, it's always like the

14:13

third person who they talked to who

14:15

did it. It's never the first person.

14:18

No, but in Nancy Drew, you talk

14:20

to 17 different

14:22

people in sequence, and the 17th person is

14:24

the one who finally did it. And

14:27

they're probably working with the 14th

14:29

person that you got suspicious of, but

14:31

you couldn't prove it. Yeah. So...

14:35

That's a good chat. Emma says,

14:37

I for one support women's wrongs

14:39

in reference to appreciating

14:42

the evil mirror universe version

14:44

of Nancy. Sir.

14:50

Jason points out there was a CW, Nancy Drew

14:52

show, which I do not know anything about. I

14:54

was wondering if that was a thing because they

14:57

did... When I was

14:59

looking for art of Nancy Drew, and the reasons why I

15:01

did that will become clear. Okay, great.

15:04

I did see key art for

15:06

a CW looking kind

15:10

of young adult show, and yeah, that

15:12

mustn't be what it was. Oh yeah, here

15:14

she is. Sure, this exists. Okay.

15:18

You know, because there was Riverdale, and then they did the... Sabrina.

15:24

But I don't know, is Nancy

15:26

Drew involved in the Riverdale universe?

15:29

I don't think so. But

15:32

they should do it. I don't know who

15:34

all, I mean... I mean Riverdale went so many places. Two

15:36

companies own everything now, so it's totally possible, but yeah.

15:39

Bart could be on the show next, you know? Yeah,

15:44

Bart. Hey, Jughead,

15:46

it's me, Bart. Don't

15:49

have a cow, Jughead. Yeah,

15:51

cowabunga. Cowabunga, don't... Alright,

15:55

Andrew, do you want to start recapping this book? Is

15:57

there anything else you want to talk about first? Yeah,

16:00

we could we could start recapping. How do we

16:02

start? Well, what is the

16:04

opening? What was your impression

16:07

of just like Nancy's life as

16:09

we begin? The novel because

16:11

you hadn't read the other one so like I

16:13

hadn't read the other one Tell me a little

16:15

bit about just like her baseline life Nancy who

16:17

okay So we talked a little bit about this

16:19

in the first episode I think originally she was

16:21

supposed to be 16 and then she was

16:23

aged up to be 18 I don't know if

16:25

that happened in revisions or what but I read as Like

16:29

18 but still living with her

16:31

dad in this and there's still one weird

16:35

There are a couple of weird incidents where her

16:37

she had like has to ask her dad permission

16:39

to like go skin diving

16:41

or But

16:45

um, she is yeah, she does not

16:47

have a real job. She is just

16:49

kind of a amateur sleuth and She

16:52

lives with her dad and she has a lot of friends and she

16:54

just kind of bounces around Finding clues wherever

16:57

she goes and her dad is a

16:59

lawyer. He's some sort of

17:01

criminal prosecutor I think

17:03

Carson Carson Drew Carson Drew

17:06

So he is friendly with the cops, but

17:08

he also respects a young girl's right to

17:10

solve a mystery Yeah, and

17:13

he also is very respectful of

17:15

the law. Yeah. Yeah, there is no mum

17:17

A asks where's the mum? I

17:19

don't remember where Nancy Drew's mom. That's

17:22

the greatest mystery of all, isn't it? Yeah I

17:24

don't know if she ever saw that one And

17:29

she has a friend named Helen and she

17:31

has a she has like a live-in servant of

17:34

some kind Hannah their housekeeper Yep

17:39

And she has solved other mysteries

17:41

which people know about it is

17:43

remarked upon The book

17:45

like refers to my name Like

17:48

their books. I mean we could We

17:52

could assume that this is like a Bilbo

17:54

Baggins situation that Nancy Drew's job is that

17:56

I mean this also is temperance bones Brennan's

17:58

deal is yeah She writes

18:01

books about the mysteries and that's

18:03

why she has no visible means

18:05

of support. But

18:09

I'm trying to find that. Nancy

18:11

had learned from her lawyer father, Carson Drew,

18:13

that a seemingly unrelated chain of events often

18:15

became a single baffling mystery. The young sleuth

18:17

had found proof of this in solving several

18:20

cases herself, her first being the secret of

18:22

the old clock and more recently, the bungalow

18:24

mystery. I love that because

18:26

it's like, wait, there are other

18:28

Nancy books? I gotta go read them. But

18:32

also they are italicized

18:36

and this is in a

18:38

paragraph that's about things that Nancy had learned

18:40

from her father. So it's very close in

18:42

on Nancy. Does

18:44

Nancy conceive of these as discrete

18:47

book adventures that she went on? Or

18:49

how does she... It's unclear. How does

18:51

she relate to her own life? There's

18:53

a nice reference to the next book

18:56

at the end. Later on. It has

18:58

like a James Bond will return sort

19:00

of thing. It is. We've

19:03

got questions in the chat from Emma

19:06

about no Beth and George.

19:08

That's who I think of as Nancy's friends.

19:10

Cassandra thinks Beth and George are from some

19:13

games. I think they may also be from

19:15

other novels,

19:17

later novels.

19:22

But no Beth and George in this one.

19:26

So something that struck me funny reading

19:28

this book for the first time is

19:31

just if you go to the first page, you

19:34

kind of get a... Like

19:36

okay, so how does Carolyn

19:39

Keene... How

19:41

does she introduce Nancy to us? Oh,

19:45

I'm looking at the first page. Hold on, I'm

19:47

going. I gotta scroll through

19:49

here. It's just the second paragraph is what

19:51

I'm looking at. Nancy, an

19:54

attractive Titian blonde grinned up at

19:56

her friend. Doris was weeding

19:58

a flower garden at her home. along

20:00

the riverbank. How do you know when

20:03

we left home, Nancy's blue eyes twinkled?

20:05

So every time you meet a new

20:07

character, not every time, but

20:09

like two-thirds of the time,

20:11

the way that they are described to

20:13

you is very like looks

20:16

forward. Very

20:19

looks forward. And not in a

20:21

way that even attempts

20:23

to imply character. No.

20:26

How they move through space. It's literally

20:28

just what color are they. Like what

20:30

color is their hair? What

20:33

color are their eyes? Well, so this,

20:35

I was keeping notes on this phenomenon

20:37

all throughout the book and it gave

20:39

me an idea for a little little

20:41

game that I would like to play

20:43

as we introduce ourselves to all these

20:45

characters. Please. Okay. And so this is,

20:47

I'm going to be the host of

20:49

this game, which I've got

20:52

a graphic which may or may not

20:54

pull up here. It's called

20:56

Nancy Drew Mystery Stories Hot or Not? Oh

21:00

no. This

21:03

is a game where you need to, maybe

21:05

you remember, maybe you don't, but based on

21:08

the descriptions that Mildred Wirt comes

21:10

up with for the character, all

21:12

the weird descriptions you decided to come up with,

21:14

you need to remember if the character is canonically

21:17

hot or not. Okay. So a

21:19

lot of people are popping off in the

21:21

chat with emojis. Oh,

21:23

so, so, um,

21:27

Nancy Drew is the sort of the

21:29

free space. So she's an attractive Titian

21:31

blonde. She's hot. Sure. And I think

21:33

Titian is meant to

21:35

be a strawberry.

21:37

A cab word like a blonde.

21:40

Yeah. A rosy apricot color says

21:42

a writer in the Paris review.

21:44

Um, so there you go. Okay.

21:47

Oh, and so, all right, to start with, we've got Helen,

21:50

this is going to be pretty much in the order they're

21:52

introduced in the book. Great. Uh, Helen

21:54

Corning, who is Nancy's friend. And

21:56

who does not do much in this book other

21:58

than be Nancy's friend. and get hit on the

22:00

head later. So do you think,

22:03

do you remember if she is hot or not based

22:05

on the description that Carolyn King gives us? I don't

22:07

remember, what is the description? I don't remember. I mean,

22:09

you have to guess if she's hot or not. Oh

22:13

God, I thought you were gonna give me the description.

22:15

Is she not hot? She doesn't gauge to

22:17

Jim Archer though. No, I think

22:20

Emily is engaged. Wait, no, yeah, Helen is

22:22

engaged to Jim Archer who we don't know.

22:24

She is hot. Slender pretty Helen Corning. Slender

22:27

pretty Helen Corning. Okay, so she's hot. So you

22:29

should not get that, yeah, you missed that one.

22:31

Okay, no I missed it. John McBride. Also

22:33

hot, he's got a crew cut. Okay, he is

22:36

hot. A handsome, well-built man with wavy black hair.

22:38

Okay. Okay, good job, you got that

22:41

one. Emily Willoughby who is

22:43

Nancy's friend and co-owner of the Lilac

22:45

Inn. I

22:47

think Emily's hot? A

22:49

dainty young woman had chestnut colored hair set

22:52

off to advantage by her white linen dress,

22:54

clearly hot. Set off to advantage. I didn't

22:56

note that phrase when I saw it. Okay,

23:00

so you're what, you got two points? Two

23:02

for three I think maybe. Mrs. Willoughby who

23:04

is Emily's aunt. Not hot. Old

23:08

but still hot. White hair framed her face

23:10

in soft waves and she was impeccably groomed.

23:13

Impeccably groomed. Yeah, still hot. Okay. All right, so

23:15

there are a couple of these that are gonna

23:17

be a little more subjective but we'll just, we

23:19

can argue about it if you have issues with

23:21

the size that I've come down on. So this

23:23

is a good way to go through the action

23:26

a little bit. Mrs. Willoughby is Emily's aunt. She's

23:29

gonna be responsible for taking the diamonds that

23:32

her parents who are both dead

23:34

left Emily and

23:36

she took them out of a safety deposit box and then

23:39

the diamonds are gonna get stolen and

23:41

Mrs. Willoughby spends most of the book

23:43

crying in her room. Okay, continue. Yeah,

23:45

so Mr. Daily who is the former

23:47

owner of the Lilac Inn who is

23:49

still hanging around to help for some

23:51

reason. So what, okay, here's

23:53

where I don't really remember what the book says but

23:55

now I'm in my head being like, does

23:57

this man, should this man

23:59

be? hot in the movie version.

24:01

And I think you

24:03

could go either way. Like he's either

24:05

got a charming, memorable character actor face,

24:08

or he's a distinguished older gentleman. So

24:11

there's a category of people

24:14

who I have come down on the side

24:16

of not hot by omission.

24:18

And it's because Carrie

24:21

Linckeen has so many ways that she tells us

24:23

that characters are hot that if she doesn't specifically

24:25

mention a character being hot, we have to assume

24:27

that they are. So

24:30

Mr. Daley is a kind-faced, white-haired man.

24:32

He has a kind face. Not

24:35

a hot face. Not a hot

24:37

face. Yeah, so he is the

24:39

owner of the Lilac Inn who

24:42

is selling it to the engaged

24:45

couple, Emily and her husband

24:48

to be Dick. And he is

24:50

hanging around during the

24:52

transition. The

24:55

Inn has people- It's kind

24:57

of confusing what the current arrangement at the

24:59

Inn is. There

25:04

are people clearly coming for lunch to

25:07

the restaurant. And they have waitresses.

25:09

They describe waitresses a bunch of

25:11

times. Yeah, but they also talk

25:13

about how the summer season

25:15

is not in full swing. And

25:18

they've sent out a bunch of brochures, but

25:20

they haven't finished the tennis court or the

25:22

pool yet. A bunch of tennis courts and

25:25

pools that don't exist yet. And

25:27

they're all booked up for the summer. And

25:30

they're all booked up! And they're still building

25:32

the resort that they're- And these two people

25:34

are going into business together and they're not

25:36

even married yet. No, not married yet. These

25:38

people are- I don't think that- I

25:40

don't know how common divorces were in the 30s. I

25:42

wish Emily all the best, but I don't know that

25:44

this marriage is going to be a good one based

25:48

on their business. Why would you go into

25:50

business with the cows? You can get the

25:52

milk for free Craig. Yes,

26:00

yes, okay, so Andrew's inference, okay,

26:03

Hannah Gruen who is Nancy's housekeeper.

26:05

Oh, she is probably dowdy Close

26:09

she is not hot. She's pleasant-faced Okay,

26:13

she's pleasant-faced which I think is

26:15

akin to kind-faced That's

26:19

the only descriptor we get of her this is

26:21

the or hot or All right,

26:23

mr. Fabian who is a jeweler

26:26

that they go to to get

26:28

the jewels appraised at which point

26:30

they find out that the jewels

26:33

Have been stolen and replaced with

26:35

glass Yes, mr. Fabian

26:37

is a Skyrim NPC, which I'll elaborate

26:39

on your second. I Don't

26:42

think he's hot. No, not hot also

26:44

pleasant-faced. Okay, so the thing with this

26:46

is Some

26:49

hauntings or other mysterious things have been happening

26:51

at the inn On

26:53

the way to the inn in their canoe Helen

26:55

and Nancy capsized

26:58

a shark or a robot or something knock them

27:00

over they don't know and At

27:04

Emily's 21st birthday dinner they

27:06

bring out the diamonds They show them

27:09

as it as Andrew said somebody steals

27:11

them in a blackout then they find

27:13

them again very quickly And

27:15

take them into town to get them appraised

27:18

and mr. Fabian is like well, these are

27:20

all fake and

27:22

so they leave sadly and then a woman

27:25

bumps into Nancy Drew a real

27:27

diamond falls out of Nancy Drew's handbag

27:29

and Nancy picks it up

27:31

and goes let's go see mr. Fabian and

27:33

without saying anything he goes this looks like

27:36

a great diamond like a

27:38

real Skyrim merchant response Do

27:41

I fancy really never like you before Nancy

27:43

seldom like seven old carrots that she got

27:45

out of a barrel? Okay,

27:49

yeah, go ahead Okay,

27:52

Jean Holmes who is a waitress at the

27:54

lilac in I think she is deliberately Not

27:57

hot. She is not hot. You're correct

28:00

Complexion was very pale and her brown

28:02

hair thick and combed close to her

28:04

face. She wore heavy glasses. Also later

28:06

she's referred to as shy plain jean

28:09

The glasses are meant to imply that they

28:11

could not be flattering at all a clear

28:14

signify Like if somebody's wearing big old nerd

28:16

glasses Like in a movie when someone's been

28:18

hot the whole time first thing they do

28:21

is they take off their glasses So so

28:23

somebody in a book is wearing glasses can't

28:25

be hot So aa asks are these all

28:27

suspects and at this point in your character

28:30

list andrew? I would say we have named

28:32

two of the suspects of the novel John

28:36

hot john with the wavy hair

28:39

He at certain times throughout the book

28:41

is pitched as a suspect though

28:44

characters who we trust keep repeatedly just

28:46

telling us that he's fine Which

28:49

made me suspect him more correct, but he

28:51

doesn't yeah, he doesn't Anyway,

28:53

he's kind of a they're also gonna be a couple people

28:55

who we need to talk about who are not on this

28:57

list because they Don't get an appearance

29:00

based descriptor the first time they

29:02

appear sure Okay, the main the

29:04

biggest one is the busybody social

29:06

director as well like in mod.

29:08

Yeah Well,

29:10

she sucks. Yeah, she sucks. I

29:12

would say that Jean

29:16

When you meet her is also a suspect

29:19

so we have been told that a waitress

29:21

named Mary Mason Left

29:23

the lilac in claiming it was

29:25

haunted and Part of

29:27

what Nancy spends the book doing is tracking trying

29:30

to track her down And

29:32

so it does stand out when

29:34

the book introduces you to a

29:36

new waitress who is kind

29:38

of mousy Is

29:41

wearing big glasses and nerd glasses

29:43

hiding her face and at this

29:45

point you've already heard that Somebody

29:49

broke into Nancy's house and

29:51

stole her charge plate, which is a Precursors

29:54

credit card prehistoric credit card.

29:56

I'm I assume by the

29:59

I can maybe only spend And in one place?

30:01

It is literally a piece of metal

30:03

with your name and

30:06

your address and stuff imprinted on it.

30:09

And it may or may not be issued

30:11

by a bank or a department store. Yeah, I

30:13

think it's supposed to be in account of the

30:16

department store. Yeah, and say, be like, ah, put

30:18

it on my account. And so somebody impersonating

30:21

Nancy Drew used this

30:23

charge plate to buy a bunch of stuff.

30:26

And that's happening in the background. It's

30:30

a sub-mystery that doesn't seem like it has anything

30:32

to do with the main mystery at first, but

30:34

then they start to appeal eventually. Yeah, they start

30:36

intersecting. And the one I do just want to

30:39

shout out, I really like, so we haven't talked

30:41

about the skin diving at all, there's a lot

30:43

of skin diving. And the book says skin diving

30:45

so many times. So many times. I know it's

30:47

a real term. And also, it's not

30:49

a real term in the way that I think the book

30:51

uses it. So skin dive, I'm sure we're gonna keep playing

30:53

Hot or Not, Andrew, but this is actually really great. We

30:55

are gonna keep playing Hot or Not, but this is fine.

30:57

Just sometimes characters

31:00

say things like. They say

31:02

it so many times. Oh

31:06

man, I lost the, I just had the quote. The

31:09

skin diving quote? John, would

31:11

you like to make a skin diving date?

31:13

John Grind, you couldn't keep me ashore. Would

31:19

you, Craig, would you like to make a skin

31:21

diving date with me? You couldn't keep me ashore.

31:25

So Nancy knows how to skin dive.

31:27

She's really good at it. It is

31:29

my understanding that skin diving is actually

31:31

like free diving. It is like snorkeling

31:33

without a snorkel. You wear it, maybe

31:35

you wear a wetsuit, and you

31:37

have flippers, and you have goggles, and you go

31:39

underwater. The river that is

31:41

at least 20 feet deep factors very heavily

31:44

into this book. She

31:46

says that she also uses an aqua

31:48

lung, AKA like an

31:51

air tank, which based on

31:53

my cursory research, is not

31:55

what skin diving is. Skin diving is like you

31:57

hold your breath and go. But

32:00

they say skin diving at least 31 times

32:02

in this book. Yeah So

32:05

often that it sounds silly and

32:07

there's only 200 pages in this book

32:10

So it's once every 10 pages if

32:12

not more that someone is

32:14

saying skin diving the other The

32:19

other phrase that gets

32:21

thrown around a million times that I clocked

32:23

was young sleuths, which young you as a

32:27

descriptor He

32:29

says as descriptor for Nancy 31 times By

32:33

contrast, she is only a girl

32:35

detective. Oh, yeah And

32:39

it's important that you tell us that she's a girl

32:41

detective because otherwise we wouldn't you know, we

32:44

wouldn't it's different from a regular detective Who's

32:46

a man? I like the doppelganger thing When

32:50

it when Nancy has

32:52

to deal with it directly Directly so

32:54

like one is even when he's

32:56

a public I'm gonna pause hot or not. So

32:58

okay looking at the image That's why we'll

33:00

bring it back I

33:02

like when she's like trying to solve

33:05

the department store and she has to

33:07

prove that she is Nancy Drew Because

33:09

Nancy Drew was already there. I

33:11

like not as there's not as much of that as

33:13

I would like Like I kind of want the orbit

33:16

person to take over Nancy's life for yeah Well,

33:19

like the one I really liked was I I

33:21

was going back and forth on whether or not I was

33:23

supposed to suspect to John And the

33:26

book is playing with that a little bit. One

33:28

of the things that I thought was really a

33:30

cool complication was John wants to

33:32

go on it She gets a

33:34

phone call or like a message

33:36

from a phone call that's supposed to be

33:38

John that says let's go on a skin

33:40

Diving date and she goes

33:42

to meet him and he never shows up a thing

33:45

that you can say to somebody without getting accused And

33:49

so she goes on the skin diving date, but

33:51

she doesn't he never shows up And so she

33:53

goes diving anyway, and somebody throws a spear at

33:55

her and it goes into her underwater camera Later

33:58

that night. She plays ping pong Later,

34:01

she plays ping pong for fun on the same day.

34:03

I don't know what's wrong with her. But

34:05

John didn't show up because

34:07

he ran into Nancy who

34:10

said, let's hang out later. And

34:13

then Nancy never showed up. And Nancy

34:15

was like, wait, that wasn't me. Yeah.

34:20

John is also always showing up, like,

34:23

while Nancy is prowling around outside looking

34:25

for clues, like John is always also

34:27

there prowling around looking for clues. He

34:29

does get explained later a

34:31

little bit because he's kind

34:34

of a detective in an

34:36

official capacity as opposed

34:38

to her who's just sort of a

34:40

drive-by detective who lets mysteries fall into

34:42

her lap. But

34:44

yeah, he's very suspicious for most

34:46

of the book. Yeah, he is. And I

34:49

thought that the double impersonation thing played well

34:51

in terms of like – I

34:53

thought I had been like, oh, well,

34:55

it's definitely him. And then I

34:57

was like, oh, well, it's definitely not. And then I found

34:59

myself in the middle going, oh, I don't know which way

35:01

this is going to go. All right,

35:04

is there anybody else? Carson Drew, Nancy's dad.

35:07

Carson Drew, Nancy's dad. He's

35:09

probably hot, right? Paul, handsome

35:11

father, extremely hot, definitely hot.

35:14

Okay, great. Mrs. Stonewell,

35:16

a former employer of Mary Mason

35:18

who was delicious at the inn.

35:21

She's probably not hot. She was mean?

35:25

She's hot, attractively dressed in a tailored sports

35:27

suit, Craig. Oh,

35:30

you're right. I misremembered because I

35:34

had in my head, I guess,

35:36

jeans accounting or no, the purported

35:40

Mary Masons accounting? Because

35:43

Nancy does wind up tracking someone who

35:45

claims to be Mary Mason. Mary

35:48

Mason, a former waitress at the lilac

35:50

inn who left saying it was haunted.

35:52

Hot or not, Craig? Hot. No,

35:56

not hot. She had clear-cut features

35:58

and wore heavy makeup. She

36:00

wore a snug fitting lavender dress. Oh.

36:03

So when you say clear cut

36:05

features, it's

36:08

definitely not- What does that mean? It's

36:10

not coded to mean hot. It just

36:12

means that you have distinctive features. Heavy

36:16

makeup and dress doesn't fit good. Definitely not hot,

36:18

sorry. People in the chat saying about

36:20

the former employer that attractively

36:23

dressed could just mean rich.

36:26

Could mean rich, but she's

36:28

attractively dressed, I think. There's

36:30

some good reads on snug fitting in

36:32

the chat, whether or not it means

36:35

sexy or trashy. Oh no. In

36:38

this context, I believe

36:40

it means that she is not

36:42

Barbie Finn. There's not

36:44

a lot to go on, but I think that that, because

36:48

they talk later about how someone, the

36:51

same person who's impersonating Nancy is also

36:53

impersonating Mary Mason at some point. Yes,

36:55

that's true. And they're like, oh, that

36:57

Mary Mason's build was like yours. You

37:01

know, no fat chicks at the- I

37:04

do think the heavy makeup is the biggest tell.

37:06

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Dick,

37:09

Emily's fiance. He's

37:11

probably hot, right? Not

37:14

hot. By omission, a young man of medium

37:16

build with reddish brown hair and a rather

37:19

serious expression. Medium build, does that

37:21

say hot to you? No,

37:23

it says I got what I ordered. Yes,

37:30

it's the drive-through. You look at these two

37:33

people and you're like, okay, neither of them

37:35

is dating up or down. They both just

37:37

look regular. Yeah, and I

37:40

found it interesting how he arrives in the book.

37:42

So like they're going up to this inn that

37:46

her friend is purchasing

37:48

with her soon to be husband to

37:51

both celebrate her birthday, to

37:54

help her get ready to run the inn, to

37:56

help her get ready to be married because they're

37:59

going to be bridesmaids. And he's

38:01

not there, but his hot, maybe

38:03

suspicious friend is. And

38:06

then he- Canonically hot, as we discussed.

38:09

And then he finally shows up and

38:12

is like fine and nice

38:15

to everyone, but ultimately like a

38:17

suit. He's a young man of

38:19

medium build. Like, what do

38:22

you expect? Okay, is

38:24

there anyone else that you have? Carl

38:26

Bard. Oh, is he the guard? Who

38:28

is a guard at the Lilac Inn?

38:30

He introduces himself by saying something like,

38:32

I'm Carl Bard the guard. He is

38:34

not hot. Yes,

38:37

not hot. He was

38:39

tall, husky, and wore slacks and a sports

38:41

shirt. Okay. He's

38:44

just a big guy, so he shows up

38:46

after- If he was hot, Caroline Keene would

38:48

tell us. Now does he show

38:50

up before or after the bomb explodes in

38:52

that new cottage? I believe it is after

38:54

the time bomb explodes. So

38:56

at some point, Nancy

38:59

awakens after Helen has gone for a

39:02

walk and she hears a ticking in

39:04

her cottage, because there are cottages on

39:06

the property, and she

39:08

leaves- No pool and no tennis course. Nope.

39:12

And she leaves to go find her friend, and while

39:14

she's finding her friend who got hit in the head

39:16

by a stranger, her cottage

39:19

literally blows up. Yeah.

39:22

Which does lead them to talk to the

39:24

police. I've forgotten to

39:26

mention that when the

39:28

diamonds get stolen, Emily's response is, we

39:30

cannot tell the police because we'll get

39:32

bad press. So, which

39:35

I do like. I like what

39:37

a mystery is like, well, we can't tell the

39:39

truth to everyone about this for a reason. I

39:41

mean, for what- don't talk to the cops for

39:43

whatever reason that you have to come up with

39:45

for not talking to the cops. The main thing

39:48

is that you shouldn't talk to them. Yeah.

39:52

Toy Christopher, we'll explain what the robot shark was. Get

39:54

ready for that. But

39:56

yeah, so the bomb explodes, and then she does have

39:59

to tell her dad that somebody threw a- Spirit her

40:01

and like tried to bomb her bed and stuff. So

40:03

they do put a guard on the premises. That's Karl

40:05

Bard Yeah, and at one

40:07

point when Nancy encounters

40:10

a doppelganger And

40:14

then shows up Claiming

40:17

to be Nancy. She does have to convince Karl

40:19

Bard that she is herself which I think yes

40:22

Okay, Lily Merryweather who's a one-time

40:24

friend of gay morrow. Yeah Lily's

40:28

probably hot right hot a slim

40:30

young woman with silver blonde hair

40:32

She wore a becoming dress of

40:34

Jade green silk. Yes,

40:36

and mr. Merryweather who is Lily's dad

40:40

Not hot hot a

40:42

fine-looking elderly man, and

40:44

I am assuming here that she means Fine-looking

40:47

elderly man and not like he's fine. Look

40:49

you Well, do we get a sense

40:51

that he is also a man of

40:53

the arts a performer Is

40:56

she a nipple baby? Well, so she is she is

40:58

a performer. I don't think he is I think he's

41:00

just like a nice guy. Okay, okay

41:02

fine-looking a fine-looking Elder a fine-looking and

41:05

then last last of all, we'll do

41:07

gay morrow. Who's the villain Oh gamer?

41:10

Oh That's your handle Gamer-o

41:18

is probably hot. Yep. Hot

41:20

beautiful, but avaricious. Oh Beautiful

41:24

Hot and hot envisage but not

41:26

in in spirit I guess these

41:28

characters that we're talking about get

41:30

introduced into the story very late

41:34

While Nancy has Nancy at this point

41:36

has had a spear thrown in her

41:38

underwater She has been run

41:40

off the road by a stolen panel

41:43

truck. She Has

41:45

been capsized. She has had someone throw

41:47

a rock at her in her car

41:50

Someone bombed her cottage Lightning

41:53

struck a tree outside the inn

41:57

And she is now just running around the

41:59

ground and she finds

42:01

a letter addressed to Lily from

42:03

Gay. She has no idea who these people are.

42:06

And there's a reference to the blue

42:08

lilacs on, that I

42:11

guess Mr. Daily has been carving, like a

42:13

wood carving of these flowers

42:15

that are all over the property. He's carving

42:17

a pipe of lilacs, which are also called

42:19

pipes sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

42:22

the Lily's full name is

42:24

used in the letter, and so they

42:27

track her down, because she's in a

42:29

summer stock production nearby or something. And

42:33

she's like, oh yes, my friend

42:35

Gay did prison time for check

42:37

forgery. Yes. And she

42:39

was very talented to put, you know,

42:42

very tragic. And I haven't- She

42:44

didn't know how to spend her money. I

42:46

haven't known her- She didn't have a destitute, yeah.

42:48

Hollywood asks if the lightning from the bad guys.

42:51

No, it's just very dramatic. There's just lightning for

42:53

some reason. I think it's Hollywood.

42:55

Now there is an earthquake that the bad

42:57

guys cause. They do cause an earthquake, that's

43:00

right. They hook up a vibrating machine in

43:02

the basement. Jinkies.

43:05

All right, so put it close, so I

43:07

don't have any more characters. Okay. Congratulations, Craig.

43:09

By nine points to seven,

43:12

you've correctly identified whether characters in

43:14

this Nancy Drew book are canonically

43:17

hot or not. All right. It's

43:20

a good way to go through the book, actually. I'm

43:23

surprised at how well that worked. Mm-hmm. Wait,

43:30

did you say you didn't have Mrs. Maud on there?

43:32

Or is there a Mrs. Maud? She

43:35

does not get an appearance-based

43:38

description when she first shows

43:40

up. Oh, okay. Okay. She

43:43

is the biggest red herring

43:45

of the novel, and maybe

43:48

Carolyn Keene, aka whoever, didn't want to

43:50

just be like, a big

43:52

fishy lady who comes down the hallway, because

43:55

her whole deal, Mrs. Maud, is

43:57

that she is very sarcastic and...

43:59

She gives Nancy crap all the time. Cuz

44:02

everybody crap all the time. Everybody hates

44:04

this busybody lady. And she

44:06

has been hired to be

44:09

the social director of the Inn, which

44:11

I guess means like programming events. She

44:13

can play guitar maybe, I guess. Yeah,

44:17

she introduced her companion as Mrs. Mod Potter and says she

44:19

was to be the Inn social director for the summer. You

44:21

don't know what Mod looks like. And

44:25

she is also giving

44:28

Aunt Willoughby a bunch

44:30

of garbage all the time for reasons

44:33

that are unclear. This

44:36

is the dumbest part of the entire

44:38

book. Oh boy, oh boy. Because we

44:40

are told that Mrs.

44:42

Willoughby is in thrall to Mod Potter

44:45

because Mod Potter has something on her.

44:47

And it later turns out

44:49

that Mod Potter has nothing on her and

44:51

is just like threatening to say bad things

44:53

about her. Yes,

44:55

yes. And she wasn't thinking rationally. So

44:57

a form of blackmail where I don't

44:59

have any leverage but you do what

45:01

I say anyway. I

45:04

will publicly accuse you of

45:06

something for which I have no proof

45:09

and you fold like a wet towel. Yes.

45:13

And she is the biggest red

45:15

herring in the novel because multiple

45:17

characters are always complaining about

45:19

how mean and annoying she is. If

45:23

this is a modern procedural in any

45:26

big way, it's that you're supposed to

45:28

suspect her for a good chunk of

45:30

the book. And it's

45:32

so obvious that you're supposed to suspect her that of

45:35

course it can't possibly be her. At

45:37

best I was wondering who she might

45:39

be in league with. But

45:41

the book certainly

45:45

leaves open from the beginning the possibility

45:47

that there are multiple people involved in

45:49

whatever the thing is. Right?

45:53

So on the canoe ride to the inn in the

45:55

first place, Helen and Nancy

45:57

see some guy with a crew

45:59

cut. who may or may not

46:01

have been responsible for their boat capsizing.

46:04

Obviously there's somebody back in town who

46:06

is impersonating Nancy. There's somebody

46:08

who's been causing trouble at the inn. The

46:11

theft of the diamonds in the first place

46:14

probably needed at least two people, one

46:16

to switch off the lights and one to steal the

46:18

diamonds. So like, throughout the

46:20

whole novel you are getting this like,

46:22

it's probably a network of bad guys

46:26

and it's like, what if it's John?

46:28

What if it's Maude? What if it's somebody

46:30

else we've never met before? Yeah, I mean by the time

46:32

you get to the end of the story, it

46:35

is easier to list

46:37

the lilac in employees who are not

46:40

involved in these crimes in some way.

46:43

There's a groundskeeper, there's two groundskeepers. There's

46:46

a good one whose name I forget

46:48

and the evil one whose name is

46:50

Gil. Yeah, the evil groundskeeper. Yeah, who

46:52

went there. There's at least three groundskeepers.

46:55

Yeah, yep. But

46:57

so yeah, the whole like back

47:00

part of it where she finds out about, oh,

47:03

this is the thing I wanted to say when she

47:05

goes to talk to Lily, she

47:07

and Helen are undercover as theater

47:09

people. That's not cover. What's

47:11

the dumb name she makes up? Oh, can

47:14

you look it up because it's very good.

47:16

She calls Helen Helga. I

47:18

don't remember what Nancy's name is, but she's

47:20

like, I'm an actress and this is my

47:22

friend, a dancer. Yeah. We're

47:25

trying to track down my old friend, Gay

47:28

Moreau, who I can't tell you any more

47:30

information about because I just learned that she

47:32

existed. Yeah, you know Gay, I don't know

47:34

her last name, but maybe you know her

47:36

last name. Did

47:41

you find Nancy's name yet? Drew

47:43

Gruen. Drew Gruen. Oh, because it's

47:45

Hannah Gruen. D-R-U.

47:48

It's her first name. Drew Gruen. Of

47:51

course, perfect. I'm Drew Gruen, an actress,

47:53

and this is my friend, Helga Marsh,

47:55

a dancer. A dancer. I

47:58

like that Lily is like, yes, my

48:00

friend. went to jail for check forgery

48:02

and quote swore revenge on the person

48:04

who put her there. Yeah, but I

48:06

don't have any other information to give

48:08

you at this time. No. Because

48:11

that would make it too easy. I just like the idea

48:13

of going to jail for

48:15

check forgery, but having

48:17

someone that you could swear revenge

48:19

against. Yeah. Like, you forged

48:22

the checks. Yeah, but somebody

48:25

threw you in jail for it and they're going to pay

48:27

for their crime. I guess. I'm going to pay you for

48:29

your crimes. That's fair. So

48:32

I guess we should. Should we

48:34

just get to like the name on the book, Andrew?

48:36

Yeah, I think that's the thing to do. Okay.

48:41

I'm trying to remember. So, okay. There's

48:43

Nancy's whole thing where she dresses

48:45

up as a ghost. It's

48:47

very complicated, Nancy. Like,

48:49

decides she's going to dress up as a ghost

48:52

because someone else has been wandering around dressed up

48:54

as a ghost. And Nancy's like, well, if I

48:56

dress up as a ghost, then

48:58

the person who's teaming up

49:00

with the person who's dressing up as

49:02

a ghost might come and call the

49:05

ghost, call me the

49:07

ghost person's name. And

49:09

in doing that, I will

49:12

find the perpetrator. And of course, the

49:14

first thing Nancy does, the very first

49:16

thing is she sees the

49:19

person who looks like she sees

49:21

the Nancy Drew impersonator and she

49:23

says out loud, my impersonator. Immediately

49:27

blowing her cover and

49:29

giving her impersonator time to get away. Yeah.

49:33

Yeah. And then later she goes

49:36

out and is like snooping around

49:38

and stumbles upon the

49:40

bad guy crew. And

49:43

they do kidnap her and tie her up.

49:45

There's like five or six of them.

49:47

There's a lot of guys. There's there's game

49:49

aro. The former actress who has

49:51

been impersonating Nancy Drew. There

49:53

is Gil, the ground, the evil

49:55

groundskeeper. There is Simon, somebody

49:58

who that they're. They're selling

50:01

their because also they've been stealing equipment

50:03

from the inn. Yeah, but also as

50:05

we learned later They've been like somehow

50:09

stealing like Cold

50:11

War era electronic equipment

50:14

Beth in response to This

50:18

is not Cold War era. This is 1930s. This

50:20

is pre cold work Feeling

50:23

equipment from the Kaiser well I

50:26

guess I'm wondering though because this was updated in

50:30

1961 and I don't know if the

50:32

electronics were in the original version or not because I did

50:34

read about I didn't read

50:36

a summary to make sure I hadn't missed anything where

50:39

they talk about her getting when she saw that she

50:41

gets a Distinguished citizen

50:43

service medal a civilian service

50:45

civilian service medal Because

50:48

she like uncovered a Cold War spy

50:50

ring or something, which is not actually

50:52

what's in the book Beth

50:54

in the in the chat of

50:57

Nancy who's convoluted scheme says this is why

50:59

she still lives at home Somebody

51:02

with too much time on there So

51:06

this whole part where she's kidnapped or tell me about the

51:08

whole part where she's kidnapped She's

51:11

gonna uncovered the the mystery

51:13

and she finds gay morrow

51:16

and discovers that she's been impersonating Nancy

51:18

and she's been gene Holmes this whole

51:21

time and She was

51:24

one of the Mary Masons not both of them

51:26

But one yeah, just one of them some

51:28

reason and then she gets like hog

51:32

tied and thrown into a little submarine

51:34

and like driven up the river to

51:36

their like hideout boat But they're hiding

51:38

out so they have they have a

51:40

they have an abandoned cabin that they've

51:43

been storing some stuff in they

51:46

have a Miniature submarine

51:48

this river must be very deep. It's

51:50

I don't yeah, it's a big river

51:52

that They

51:55

are using it's like it's

51:57

not it's not big enough that

51:59

you can skin dive or whatever in

52:01

it without getting your foot caught between

52:03

rocks. But it is big

52:05

enough that you could have a 1960s

52:08

era submarine in it. You

52:11

just like feel a U-boat from the

52:13

government and drive it in this river.

52:16

This river is like the cliff in

52:18

Jurassic Park by the T-Rex pen, where

52:21

it is as deep or as like,

52:23

you know, as deep a fall as

52:25

Steven Spielberg needs it to be for

52:28

dramatic effect. But

52:30

yeah, first they put her in the submarine. I had a

52:33

whole nother two people on the hot or not list. Craig

52:36

the Diver, who is an accomplice. Oh yeah.

52:38

Game or row. Yep. This is going to

52:41

be this bonus round. Yep. Oh,

52:43

do you have more hot or not? Hot or

52:45

not. Keep going. Keep going. Now that's the diver

52:48

who's an accomplice. Oh, he's hot. He's got a

52:50

crew cut, right? No, not hot. Dark Wiry had

52:52

an impassive expression. Oh no. Bud,

52:54

who's an accomplice. Hot.

52:57

No, not hot. A stocky man of about 30. God

53:02

dang it. Only, only

53:04

gay more is hot as

53:06

a, as an avaricious,

53:09

like ingenue character. So

53:13

yes, they take her in the submarine

53:15

to their hideout boat. You're right. And

53:17

that I think is where gay more

53:19

villain monologues to her for a while.

53:21

That's, that's where all the villains take

53:23

turns kind of answering all of

53:25

Nancy's questions about how they pulled it all off. Well,

53:28

and it's like they, she

53:30

wanted to, they've been

53:32

stealing the electronics. I

53:35

don't know why they were messing with

53:37

the in, in the first place. They

53:40

want, it's a little bit that gay

53:42

moreau knew about, just knew the place.

53:45

Oh, you're right. Had a lot of information about like

53:47

how to turn around. Yeah. Yeah. And

53:49

it's partly that they wanted to like seal

53:52

tools so they could work on their cold

53:54

war, the military grade

53:56

weapons that they're sealing. Yes. And

53:58

then also. Nancy's

54:01

dad is the one

54:03

who prosecuted her, which

54:05

is why she goes and takes money

54:08

from Nancy Drew to get

54:11

back to her. Again, Nancy's

54:14

father is fully alive and revenge

54:20

could be taken out on him

54:22

directly. Yeah. But instead, gay

54:24

moro literally punishing Nancy for the sins of

54:26

her father. Yes. I

54:28

think there's a different version of this where gay

54:31

tries to win Nancy over

54:33

by telling her about all

54:35

the weird criminals who her dad has

54:37

defended or whatever over the years. Is

54:41

that like a Harley Quinn situation,

54:43

maybe? Maybe, I don't know. Okay.

54:45

Yeah, Nancy Drew and gay moro

54:47

could do like a Harley Quinn,

54:49

poison ivy. Yeah, that's what I

54:51

was wondering. Yeah. And

54:54

so, and then she

54:56

stole the diamonds because it was an opportunity

54:59

and it could help finance their situation. This

55:03

is an interesting thing. Sarah says, note, this convolution

55:05

was written for free teen girls who would read

55:07

the same book over and over and over. Do

55:10

we think that people read

55:12

these kind of books over and over and over

55:15

or do you read each one and go on

55:17

to the next one of the like 160 books

55:19

in the series that there are? I just kind

55:21

of wonder if, because thinking

55:23

about Goosebumps, like there are ones

55:25

that stick out, but there are also ones that don't,

55:27

you know? So I

55:29

don't, yeah, I wonder, yeah. I don't know.

55:31

I feel like people seem to think both.

55:33

Yeah. Yeah, I would think it's

55:35

a little bit of both, right? Where it's like

55:38

the books are very aware that they want you

55:40

to buy the new ones. It feels, it does

55:42

feel very scholastic book fair to

55:44

be like, you got to go get the next one. But

55:47

I do, you

55:50

know, anecdotally talking to people who

55:52

have ever, you know, had

55:54

Nancy Drew books growing up. Like, yeah, you read

55:56

and reread them because you had them and they're

55:58

very easy to read. You

56:00

know maybe you like one character or

56:02

maybe you like that story in the same

56:04

way that you might watch it You

56:07

know people watch reruns of law and order all the time

56:09

You know like this is the one with Leslie Odom jr.

56:11

In it like this Well, I like to see where he's

56:13

the priest again a few

56:15

people kind of kind of saying Didn't

56:18

reread this kind of thing except for maybe one or

56:20

two favorites, which I think is pretty yeah Which is

56:23

my relationship to goosebumps. I think sure sure sure I

56:25

buy that But

56:27

so then the boat Crashes

56:30

against something not a submarine

56:32

I guess it bursts into

56:34

and then it lights it spontaneously lights on

56:37

fire and then the cops show up Yeah,

56:40

and they catch everybody and there's

56:42

one last oh no who's Nancy

56:44

moment? Which I did appreciate where

56:47

game aro tries to say no, she's the

56:49

real Nancy Drew and Nancy's

56:52

dad has to get close enough to see his

56:54

daughter before they expose her and

56:59

Then I do have the quote From

57:01

where she is rewarded

57:04

for her efforts Andrew

57:06

Mm-hmm sometimes this

57:08

book is written like a

57:10

webcomic where like so

57:13

earlier in the book Before

57:15

she does the ghost like pretend to

57:18

be the ghost thing She's

57:20

talking to somebody and then apropos of nothing

57:22

It's like it's something to the effect of

57:24

like and then Nancy had a great idea

57:26

I will try it. She said

57:28

out loud and then just like and then we cut

57:30

to the next thing like, okay, great similarly

57:35

We get a whole rundown of like what the

57:37

criminals were really up to and what John was

57:39

a Secret army to

57:41

say he says at the beginning of the book.

57:43

I can't tell you what I'm doing is classified

57:46

That means it's that means it's confidential. I can't

57:48

tell civilians about it. He's got a big dip.

57:50

He's a big jerk about it But

57:53

he yes, he's been investigating this crime ring for

57:55

a while and he tells Nancy what's going on

57:58

quote a weekly Nancy was

58:00

honored at a colorful army ceremony

58:02

where she was presented with the

58:05

distinguished civilian service medal for outstanding

58:07

work Quote this is marvelous.

58:09

Thank you. She said To

58:11

who what? What

58:14

am I watch there's not even a scene here because

58:16

then it just moves on to her talking with her

58:18

friends She just says

58:20

this is marvelous. Thank you to no one

58:23

my absolute favorite exchange in the

58:25

entire book is It's

58:28

an early scene where

58:30

Emily and Helen

58:32

maybe and and John are

58:34

all like having lunch together and

58:44

So they're chatting and then

58:47

not a very gallant guy John remarks Yes, several

58:49

questions about the man with the crew cut and

58:51

seemed very much disappointed when Helen could add nothing

58:54

more to the description Later Nancy said to John

58:56

your career in the army must be interesting Do

58:58

you have a special assignment wish I could tell

59:00

you Nancy, but it's classified or confidential to civilians.

59:02

I understand Nancy smiled Presently

59:05

she turned to Emily. I thought doors Drake on the

59:07

way here Far away is it

59:09

it's just like a bunch of people barely making

59:11

small talk with each other about a mile up

59:14

the road Emily answered after lunch and Emily offered

59:16

to show Nancy and Helen around the end and

59:18

take them on tour of the extensive ground That

59:20

was my reaction to the like and then that

59:22

night they spent the evening playing ping pong on

59:24

the same day that she'd had a Spear thrown

59:26

at her and you're like, what are we doing

59:29

here? Yeah Like

59:31

you can't show anybody the details of

59:34

any social interaction because it's not pertinent to the

59:36

mystery no, it's not Well,

59:38

and then we and we all and we

59:40

all know how important mystery is to the

59:42

Nancy Drew. Yep. So the book ends With

59:46

ending to any book we've ever

59:48

read. We're excited about the coming

59:50

nuptials of Emily

59:52

and dick and of

59:54

course, we know that Helen is engaged and

59:57

there's no funny business here between John

1:00:00

and Nancy though. No, there's

1:00:02

some like meaningful looks, but like not

1:00:04

like, we can't bring this guy

1:00:06

back. The book seems to

1:00:08

recognize that none of these

1:00:11

people can possibly be carried forward.

1:00:13

No, not at all. Just subsequent

1:00:15

Nancy Drew. Secretly, she wondered when

1:00:17

another sleuthing adventure would come her

1:00:19

way. Soon, I hope, Nancy

1:00:21

thought, she was to have

1:00:23

her wish when she found herself involved

1:00:25

in the italics secret of Shadow Ranch.

1:00:29

This is a young woman, by the

1:00:31

way, who was nearly exploded by a

1:00:33

pipe bomb hit in the face with

1:00:35

a rock, speared in a river. And

1:00:38

then tied up in a burning boat. And

1:00:41

yeah, left to die in a burning boat.

1:00:43

And she's like, oh boy, I sure hope

1:00:45

I have more mysteries a-coming. Later,

1:00:48

as Nancy, Helen and Emily were

1:00:50

talking, the two older girls suddenly

1:00:53

stopped speaking on the subject of

1:00:55

their forthcoming weddings. Helen

1:00:57

said, goodness, Nancy, you must be

1:00:59

tired of us talking about steady

1:01:02

partners when Nancy interrupted. Laughing

1:01:04

gaily, she said, not at all.

1:01:06

For the present, my steady partner

1:01:08

is going to be mystery. End

1:01:12

of book, cut the black. That's the

1:01:14

last line in the book. That's the

1:01:16

last line. I love it so much.

1:01:18

Incredible ace hero. Yeah,

1:01:21

for real. This is

1:01:23

ace representation. Nancy Drew married to

1:01:25

mystery. Now,

1:01:28

are we sure that it is not the

1:01:31

unfortunate man named mystery?

1:01:34

I mean, it's not. The MRA man. It's

1:01:37

not capitalized. Okay,

1:01:39

good. I'm looking

1:01:41

out for Nancy here. I

1:01:44

just love that she doesn't. She

1:01:46

doesn't want to get married. She's married to her work. She's

1:01:49

married to the work, which she doesn't get paid for and

1:01:51

is not doing any kind of official capacity. Kirsten

1:01:54

says, okay, every book now needs to end

1:01:56

with, quote, my steady partner is going to

1:01:59

be Jean. My

1:02:02

study partner is going to be science fiction. Yeah,

1:02:04

this is a pretty

1:02:07

fun book, Andrew. It was fun. It was stupid. I

1:02:11

didn't see it. What was

1:02:13

your suggestion of like solving it or

1:02:15

trying to figure out what was happening?

1:02:18

The way it's stupid is the way that we

1:02:21

cover a lot of like kids

1:02:23

and YA fiction

1:02:25

where we decide that as

1:02:28

a bit, we're going to

1:02:30

think about it always too hard, and none of

1:02:32

it was like built to sustain that, and that's

1:02:34

what the comedy comes from. Oh

1:02:36

yeah, Holy Bird asked, did they catch her? Yes.

1:02:38

The burning boat attracted

1:02:41

the attention of the river

1:02:43

police who then showed up

1:02:45

and rounded up the criminals. Yes,

1:02:48

sorry. So

1:02:52

wait, what was your question? I

1:02:54

guess my question was like, what

1:02:56

was it like to try and

1:02:58

solve the mystery as you were

1:03:00

reading? I just think, and

1:03:04

you said this a little bit in the first

1:03:06

book too, is like

1:03:09

what constitutes a mystery is

1:03:12

kind of loosely defined in

1:03:14

this book. And then by

1:03:16

the end, where, okay,

1:03:19

this certainly has been an involved and

1:03:21

dangerous mystery, said Carson Drew, Nancy's

1:03:24

adult lawyer father. And

1:03:26

it's just like when it escalates

1:03:29

to people stealing advanced

1:03:31

like weapons and equipment

1:03:34

from the United States

1:03:36

military and blowing

1:03:38

people up with IEDs and

1:03:41

like tying them up on a boat and

1:03:43

setting them on fire, I feel like we've

1:03:46

graduated from mystery to like felony at least.

1:03:48

Like I feel like mystery is not enough

1:03:50

of a word to describe what's going on

1:03:52

here. The stolen diamonds

1:03:54

would have been enough of a mystery. Or

1:03:57

I was honestly... All

1:04:01

of the somebody is causing

1:04:03

chaos at the inn. You

1:04:06

know, like, they talk

1:04:08

a little bit about the previous owner

1:04:10

before Mr. Daily. Like, I was wondering

1:04:12

if this was going to be like,

1:04:15

somebody didn't want these young whippersnappers to

1:04:17

take over the inn and

1:04:19

was causing trouble. That's the mystery I thought that was-

1:04:21

That would be more of a mystery. Yeah, and like,

1:04:23

in terms of, this is

1:04:25

a thing with clues that you can solve,

1:04:29

I feel like- Yep. You can't solve it.

1:04:32

And like, Encyclopedia Brown are more solvable in

1:04:34

that you get to the end of the

1:04:36

story and if you think about it hard

1:04:38

enough, you can look back and see all

1:04:40

the clues. I just don't, Nancy

1:04:42

finds things that she calls clues, but

1:04:44

they're rarely illuminating in

1:04:46

any specific way. It's

1:04:49

a little Encyclopedia Brown. It's

1:04:52

a little Encyclopedia Brown where it's like,

1:04:54

and he figured it out. I think

1:04:57

Encyclopedia Brown is actually better at constructing

1:04:59

a mystery and giving you little details

1:05:01

and clues to pay attention to. And

1:05:03

this, the closest thing you get to

1:05:05

that is, Nancy

1:05:08

will sense people

1:05:10

lying or detect them visiting

1:05:12

or something. And it's

1:05:14

more about, okay, who is the book telling you

1:05:17

or not telling you to suspect? And how does

1:05:19

that make you feel? It's more that, it's more

1:05:21

vibe space than- It is very vibe space. You're

1:05:23

right. Yes. That's a good way to

1:05:26

describe it. It is like, you're

1:05:28

not solving something as

1:05:30

much as you are, like, which

1:05:32

one is the criminal here? Which

1:05:35

one will be the criminal at the end? We've

1:05:38

got a lot. Maya

1:05:41

says the last Nancy Drew novel is she finally leaves her

1:05:44

dad's house and works for the CIA. Brent

1:05:47

says Nancy Drew finds Osama-Pidlada.

1:05:49

Oh boy. I

1:05:51

did see Zero Dark Thirty. I'm

1:05:54

just thinking of that picture of

1:05:56

Obama and all the people in the room looking

1:05:58

at the screens really intensely. And then also

1:06:01

like Nancy with her like flashlight like pointing

1:06:03

it at the green at Obama's

1:06:05

face And she calls George W Bush and she's

1:06:07

like yeah, we got it Caroline

1:06:11

wants us to shout out the Nancy Drew

1:06:13

hark of vagrant comics hark of vagrant very

1:06:15

good go check it out So

1:06:18

yeah, that's Nancy Drew and the mystery at lilac in

1:06:21

she's coming back for more adventures. You can go check

1:06:23

them out. I'm sure Mm-hmm before

1:06:25

we get out of here Andrew is there anything

1:06:27

else you want to say about Nancy Drew? No,

1:06:30

absolutely not Okay, I had my one bit

1:06:32

and I've expended it and now I'm doing

1:06:34

it worked pretty well So

1:06:38

in the because this was a bonus

1:06:40

stream with our overdue patreon supporters It

1:06:42

felt like a good time to

1:06:44

share another thing that our patreon supporters

1:06:47

created which is the ODE

1:06:50

Awards for 2023

1:06:53

not affiliated with the Garfield

1:06:57

Empire or Jim Davis in any way. No, not

1:06:59

at all We I

1:07:01

think they were initially called the

1:07:04

Opies because like overdue podcast

1:07:06

ease. Mm-hmm, and then somebody

1:07:09

Suggested that they be called the ODEs, which was a

1:07:11

great idea Possibly because of

1:07:13

our discords rich Garfield Garfield culture

1:07:15

fan culture. Yes And

1:07:18

so I do want to thank Nora in

1:07:20

the discord who organized the whole

1:07:22

voting and nominating process and Then

1:07:25

we'll be sharing some graphics

1:07:27

by ZUP on the

1:07:29

discord That they made that we

1:07:31

can share as well But I do want to go to

1:07:34

the list Emma does point out

1:07:36

that Jim Davis was nominated for an

1:07:38

ODE So

1:07:43

in in no particular order The

1:07:47

best important and so these categories were

1:07:49

not only voted on by our

1:07:51

members But they were submitted by our members our

1:07:53

discord members as well Best

1:07:55

important book read in 2023 to

1:07:57

kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee

1:08:00

Best quote book Andrew would hate read

1:08:02

in 2023 ready player one by Ernest

1:08:06

Claus yeah book Andrew did best

1:08:10

just vibes book read in 2023 a prayer

1:08:12

for the crown

1:08:14

shy by Becky Chambers Becky Chambers a

1:08:16

big lot of folks love Becky in

1:08:18

the discord crying in

1:08:20

her before yes we did the

1:08:23

worst best seller screw told us about

1:08:27

what is it long way to us something

1:08:29

I was like the spaceship one yeah

1:08:31

yeah okay okay somebody in the

1:08:33

chat is gonna tell us the

1:08:35

name of this book yeah they'll

1:08:37

tell us crying is to book read in 2023 the song

1:08:39

of Achilles by Madeline

1:08:41

Miller weirdest book read in 2023

1:08:44

pure and AC by Susanna

1:08:46

Clark I've been thinking about that one

1:08:48

as the follow-up to Dr. Strange and

1:08:50

mr. Norrell wherever

1:08:53

that book is called funniest

1:08:55

book read in 2023 hitchhikers guide of the

1:08:57

galaxy Douglas Adams best anthology

1:08:59

read in 2023 exhalation by Ted Chang the

1:09:03

long way to a small angry planet there

1:09:06

it is Caroline and Caitlin and Holy Bird

1:09:08

and yeah everybody cuz everybody loves that book

1:09:11

best latest best translated book the Iliad

1:09:13

by Homer translator Emily Wilson best

1:09:16

audiobook read in 2023 American Gods

1:09:18

by Neil Gaiman best romance

1:09:20

book read in 2023 the song

1:09:23

of Achilles by Madeline Miller graphic

1:09:25

fiction or nonfiction book pneumonia

1:09:28

by N.D. Stevenson best

1:09:30

nonfiction book I think was a tie

1:09:32

I guess does

1:09:35

a little confusing but nonfiction book

1:09:38

braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall

1:09:40

Kimmerer and I'm glad my mom died by

1:09:42

Jeanette McCurdy best memoir crying

1:09:44

in H Mart by Michelle Zauner best

1:09:47

science fiction book read in 2023 these were all read

1:09:50

in 2023 not released in 2023 all

1:09:52

systems read by Martha Wells fantasy

1:09:55

book read in 2023 legends and

1:09:57

lattes by Travis Baldry young

1:09:59

adult adult book, the graveyard book by

1:10:02

Neil Gaiman, best middle grade

1:10:04

book, the Westing game by Ellen Raskin.

1:10:06

Oh yeah, that one. That's a good one. Best

1:10:09

children's book, Where the Wild Things

1:10:11

Are by Maurice Sandak. I would

1:10:14

say Simon's best book

1:10:16

of 2023 is probably, probably

1:10:22

a Chris Haughton book, Shush We Have a

1:10:24

Plan. He loves that book.

1:10:29

Best historical fiction book, read in

1:10:31

23, Pachinko, Minjin Lee, horror book,

1:10:33

The Haunting of Hill House by

1:10:35

Shirley Jackson. Best thriller book,

1:10:37

read in 2023, Ghost

1:10:40

Train by Louise Foley, Choose

1:10:43

Your Own Adventure. It is thrilling if

1:10:45

you read it the right way. It's very

1:10:47

disappointing if you read it the wrong way. We

1:10:50

did need two tries. Best mystery book, read in

1:10:53

2023, Murder on the Orient

1:10:55

Express by Agatha Christie. Best book featured on

1:10:57

overdue in 2023, All

1:10:59

Systems Read by Martha Wells. Best

1:11:02

book published in 2023, The

1:11:04

Iliad by Homer, translator Emily Wilson.

1:11:07

And the best book read in 2023,

1:11:11

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. A

1:11:13

great book, glad that people read it.

1:11:16

Well, Jim Davis, it's an honor just to be nominated.

1:11:19

I'm sorry that you didn't take home the gold in

1:11:24

any of those categories, but there's always next year. So

1:11:27

thanks to everybody who participated in the

1:11:29

Odes process. We'll again, we'll probably do

1:11:31

them again next year. And thanks to

1:11:33

Nora for organizing it once

1:11:36

again. If you have any

1:11:38

thoughts on those winners, or you

1:11:41

have any thoughts on mysteries that may or may

1:11:43

not be mysteries, you can send us an email,

1:11:46

overdopodatgmail.com. Find

1:11:49

us on social media, at OverdoPod.

1:11:51

We try to be on Blue Sky

1:11:53

and Instagram these days.

1:11:55

Find us over there. Our

1:11:57

theme song is composed by Nick Liranjic.

1:12:00

And her folks want to know more about the show, where do they go? Jim

1:12:04

Davis is the decaprio of

1:12:07

the Odies. That's very good. overduepodcast.com

1:12:17

is our internet website. We have the books that we

1:12:19

have read and are going to read. Our

1:12:21

March schedule will be up soon,

1:12:23

or is already, I guess depending

1:12:25

on when you're listening to this,

1:12:28

patreon.com/OverduePod. People in chat know about it already,

1:12:30

but if you subscribe at a certain level,

1:12:33

you can sit on these chats. You

1:12:35

can chat with us. You have fun. You get to

1:12:37

be on the Discord. What do we

1:12:40

got going on there? We got the Odies. Some

1:12:43

people have been organizing kind of a loose,

1:12:45

like, voice chat book club periodically lately, which

1:12:47

is pretty cool. Yeah, where you don't have

1:12:49

to read books. You're just kind of showing

1:12:52

up and talking about what you've read lately.

1:12:54

It seems like a cool hang. Show on

1:12:56

up. Yes. Leah, is

1:12:58

the Odie stuff happening in the Discord? Yes, it is

1:13:00

one of the things happening in the Discord. What

1:13:05

else? I think that's it, right? That's

1:13:07

it. You do have to be a Patreon

1:13:09

supporter at any level to join the Discord.

1:13:11

Yeah, Discord's cheap, everybody. I'm just saying. Andrew,

1:13:16

thanks for making a fun Mark

1:13:19

Zuckerberg-inspired game for us to

1:13:21

play today. I

1:13:24

can't wait to see what horrific, world-changing social

1:13:26

network this episode spawns. I can't, yeah. I

1:13:28

hope it's a good one. I hope it's

1:13:31

great. I hope it earns us a lot

1:13:33

of money so we can buy part of

1:13:35

why you never be bothered by it. Nancy

1:13:42

Drew and the Leaked Personal

1:13:44

Data. All

1:13:47

right, everybody. Thank you for hanging out with us in

1:13:49

the chat. Thank you for listening

1:13:51

to our podcast, which is the main

1:13:53

thing people do with podcasts. Yeah, that's

1:13:55

great. We like it a lot. We like you a

1:13:57

lot. To

1:14:00

solve the next mystery with you, please try to

1:14:02

be happy. That

1:14:33

was a Headphone Podcast.