Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews
Written on Nov 5, 2012
The gist of the story is Nancy helping (yet again) a newly found friend and her grandmother save their farm and catch 1930s style Halley Comet Cult people (anyone remember that from the 90s?) Anyway, the mystery's conception started when a bottle of perfume Nancy's friend Bess bought sprayed all over Nan and she was mistaken for someone else, with Nancy exclaiming her catch-phrase "It must be a clue!" From there, the whole thing snowballed into Nan's favorite hobby -- solving mysteries. Nancy is the sweet, charming innocent person and becomes a good-doer by solving the case, everyone is happy. The End.
What set this apart from the others I have read thus far, is the cult aspect. It was an interesting new development because they also showed a character who obviously wanted out but was trapped against her will, I just thought it was interesting that Keene included that snippet, showing what a scary prospect it could be. Also, the whole time I was reading The Secret of Red Gate Farm, I kept thinking how advanced it was for preteen girls. Would they really have understood the definition of the word, even in the thirties? I thought, between saving the farm from being repossessed and the cult thing this was a very mature book.