THE ESKIMO'S SECRET by CAROLYN KEENE

THE ESKIMO'S SECRET

BY CAROLYN KEENE

THE BLURB:-

The telephone voice rang startlingly loud. 'Miss Nancy Drew?' The voice was unfamiliar. 'I'm calling about your father.'

'Where is he? Who is this? What is going on?' Nancy demanded.

'If you want your father back, you must do what we tell you,' rasped the voice.

Nancy is desperate. Her father has been kidnapped- and she must hand over to his captors one of her dearest friends, whom they believe will lead them to a priceless Eskimo treasure. If she refuses, she'll never see her father again...

THE REALITY:-

Yes, I know, I know- you may well question what Miss Elaineous is doing reading a Nancy Drew mystery story, which is aimed at teenagers. But the truth is that I myself once read this, as a teenager, and I bought it simply for a line I want to reference in a critical essay I'm putting forward for my next MA submission, and I thought it best to get both the quote and the reference details spot-on.

I am currently writing an autobiographical fiction piece about my first interview ever, at Great Yarmouth College of Art. It was a very stressful day for a fifteen-year-old, taking two buses across the country solo, and then the interview itself wasn't great and I wasn't accepted. Oh well, I didn't think much to the place anyway (the college was a dump, and closed less than ten years later) and it was their loss. But the quote I remembered came from this book and is pertinent to my memoir. It's “Look with the eyes of the past to find the darkest dawn”. This novel is something I would have read not that long before that first, sad, interview (I do think my life would have been much better had I been accepted, even though I wasn't overly impressed with the building, which was declining into dereliction rapidly).

As a book it has everything a mystery story needs- good characters, an interesting plot, an increase in pace and all of this tempered by a touch of realism. I like the way young adult fiction (and I would class it as this, rather than children's fiction) skirts over the grittier aspects of life, such as where does Nancy find the money to carry out her escapades. One assumes that her father, attorney Carson Drew is rich. I would possibly shove my memoir into the YA section, as it is about a fifteen year old, and it's something others of that age will be able to relate to.

Typos abounded (I counted at least four), with nancy printed... just like that, with a small N, Helen mysteriously having an a added to the end of her name, form rather than from and two adjacent words split and re-formed, so publishers take note!

I read this book in a few hours, and would highly recommend it to teenagers.