The Mystery At The Ski Jump

 

Hey, all!  Welcome back to Do The Drew.  In today's Installment, we have The Mystery At The Ski Jump (renamed Mystery At The Ski Jump in the revision) written by Alma Sasse in 1952. I couldn't find anything about this particular author so let's just dive into the review.

Characters: Nancy Drew, Bess Marvin, George Fayne (with guest appearances by Carson Drew, Nancy's aunt, Eloise Drew, Hannah Gruen, Ned Nickerson, Burt Eddleton, and Dave Evans.  

Premise: Nancy investigates a fake fur stock company that's swindling people and also tries to help a young man reacquire his inheritance and reunite with an old friend.  

Nancy gets pulled into her next mystery when her housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, buys some fur stock thinking it's legit, but it turns out it's not when the company sent their clients a "dividend" which is just a money order instead of a check made out by the company's treasurer, which is noted by one of the swindler's victims, a Mrs. Packer who is also burgled out of one her pairs of earrings. Honestly, I'm not really sure how stocks work as I've never invested and this was back in the fifties, so I'm sure things have changed since then.

One of the clues Nancy gets is Dunstan Lake, which turns out to be the name of one of the crooks who's working with a couple, the Channings (the wife's name is Mitzie who was a former skater and the husband was never named in either edition, which, seriously, what's up with that?) as well as another man, Sidney Boyd and Nancy's aided in her investigation by her aunt, Eloise Drew, her father Carson, Bess, George, Ned, Dave, and Burt, though they kinda felt more like background characters rather than supporting characters in this story, which honestly annoyed me. 

The second mystery involves a young man, Charles Wilson, who's suing to get his inheritance back from his uncle and trying to reconnect with an old friend named John Horn, though this is more of a case of Carson Drew's and we don't really get much information on this.  Like, what was the set up for the inheritance? How did Charles discover the theft?  Where was the will?  Was there a will?  More information was needed for me invested in this mystery.  Of course, Nancy devotes equal time to both mysteries and reunites Charles and John by the end of the story while Charles remains in litigation with his uncle to get his money back, which begs the question, how would Horn be able to help?  Did he witness the will---if there was one---being notarized?  And for that matter, if there was a will, why didn't search for the notary?  Okay, granted, this is back in the fifties, but still....these are the kind of things, you should be putting into the story.

After putting in some obstacles for Nancy, such as sending her a telegram supposedly from her father, and then later, kidnapping her, Boyd and the Channings are captured and taken away by the police, so a fairly typical ending for a Nancy Drew story.

The 1968 revision is pretty much the same except everything's been condensed.  To be honest, this wasn't really one of my favorite mysteries as it has a disjointed feel to it in both editions.  I'm not sure why it's called "The Mystery At The Ski Jump" since the ski jump itself only featured briefly in the story.  That being said, be tenacious, determined, and steadfast.  Do the Drew.