Girl Detective #40 Green with Envy

This is the newest release in the Girl Detective series and is the second of three stories in the "EcoMystery" Trilogy. I really like the setting of this trilogy - in Costa Rica at a (supposedly) eco-friendly resort called Casa Verde. Although the writers make fun of over the top fanatic ecowarriors, there is a lot of information about green living provided. And there's lots of descriptions of wildlife to enjoy.

In one scene (spoiler alert), Nancy finds herself in swamp water, surrounded by several crocodiles. Luckily a quick thinking individual throws out some meat to distract the crocs - our chum Nancy is saved by chum!

One complaint I have is that the cover of the book has no relation to the story, other than the fact that it might be set in a tropical rain forest. There are no suspension bridges in this story. And there isn't any rock climbing in the first story of the trilogy either, which is what is featured on that book's cover.

January statistics

The official tally for the month of January is 32 Nancys read! And only 3 of them were ones intended for the 3rd grade set. Mostly I read titles from the Nancy Drew Files series, but I did get to a number of Girl Detective stories, a classic 56 title and even one Graphic Novel. My favorite of the month was Girl Detective #12 Stop the Clock - I am working on an article for The Sleuth fanzine describing some of the homages that are paid to The Secret of the Old Clock in this story, which was released during the year of the 75th anniversary of Nancy Drew.

I am slowing down to a rate of less than one Nancy per day for the rest of the year (had to go back to work, blah). But I have been enjoying the process of going through the unread mysteries, so I will continue to blog from time to time about my reading adventures.

Girl Detective #17 En Garde

All the "action" of the story centers around fencing, which makes this book a bit lackluster. But there was a WTF moment towards the end (*spoiler alert*) - one of the girls gets scratched on the face during a fencing meet with a saber that has allegedly been laced with strychnine. Nancy runs up and says that they must get her stomach pumped immediately! Sorry to say, that's not going to do much good since she didn't ingest the poison....