Nancy Drew 10: Password to Larkspur Lane: Password to Larkspur Lane (Nancy Drew, #10) (Nancy Drew (eBook), #10)

Blue bells will be singing horses! This strange message, attached to the leg of a wounded homing pigeon, involves Nancy Drew in a dangerous mission. Somewhere an elderly woman is being held prisoner in a mansion, and  Nancy is determined to find and free her. Meanwhile, the young detective’s close friend, Helen, begs her to solve a second mystery. Helen’s grandparents, the Cornings, are frightened by a sinister wheel of blue fire that appears after dark in the woods outside their home at lonely Sylvan Lake. When Nancy discovers the significance of the eerie signal, she also learns that her two mysteries are connected.

• ISBN10: 0448095106
• ISBN13: 9780448095103
• Publish Date: 1 June 1960
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Grosset & Dunlap Inc.,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 192
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780448095103

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

A carrier pigeon lands in the Drew's yard with a hurt wing and an undelivered letter contain an odd set of directions. After visiting her family doctor for her housekeeper's sprained ankle he confides that he had been taken recently, blind-folded to tend an elderly woman. This sparks Nancy's interest and sets about deciphering the bird's message which she believes to be an important clue.

Why must the newer yellow hardcovers be politically incorrect? It is screamingly obvious that Carolyn Keene had no qualms about racial stero-types, dubbing pick-pocketers and the like, as "ethnic and dark skinned". Reading these descriptions in 2010 is such an eye-opener, when you think about now stepping on eggshells so as not to offend anyone and in the 30s they thought nothing of it.

A section of the book was in the setting of an asylum, where Nancy enters to save a missing woman and goes espionage on the reader. (I could faintly hear the "Mission Impossible" theme song in the background.) The head nurse in the institution had a Nurse Ratched quality to her, bullying the patients in a condescending tone, and controlling their every action as she sees fit. Even though this was not intended as Nurse Ratched did not come to being until the 60s, it was still a very entertaining character with unique traits.

Maybe it's because I read the original 1930s publication, but I found this most enjoyable, probably because it had been unedited for the masses of another generation. The Password To Larkspur Lane was a very different look at Nancy and what was acceptable of that time.

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