Famous Mistakes
Publisher: Aladdin (S&S)
Publication Date (January 2019)
ISBN 10 - 1481485490
ISBN 13 - 978-1481485494
164 pages of story
This book is the perfect example of where you should not judge a book by its cover. This seventeenth book in the Nancy Drew Diaries series has all the elements on the cover that would entice one to pick up and read the book for its mystery elements. A young girl detective with a flashlight, heading into a dimly lit room. Footprints on the dusty floor, which seem to lead out of the wall, hinting at a hidden door. Works of art hanging on the wall and a ceramic bust stationed near the door, suggesting the mystery would involve an art gallery, or perhaps an art theft.
Well, Famous Mistakes is definitely an apt title for the mystery, because the cover certainly causes readers to mistake what is going on inside. What I thought was going to be an interesting mystery turns out to be yet one more tale of sabotage that has nothing whatsoever to do with paintings or art galleries. Rather, the mystery centers around the fact that someone is trying to sabotage the career of comedian Brady Owens, who Ned is scheduled to interview for his podcast. In the immortal words of another famous Brady, "Sabotage, Sabotage, Sabotage!" (Okay, so it was really "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" - but let me steal the quote where I can...) I have been giving S&S and this new Nancy Drew Diaries series all the support I could, but there reaches a limit when even the most devoted fan has to stop and say, "Enough with the sabotage! Not every mystery has to be about sabotage!" Of course, the writer of this book must have realized this was the case, because there is a moment when Nancy admits on page 35, "Preventing sabotage is kind of my specialty." Say what?!?! Since when did solving mysteries suddenly evolve into preventing sabotage? Perhaps since writers (and perhaps the publisher as well) could not come up with any other creative ideas?
In any event, Owens is set to take the stage at the new River Heights Arts Complex, but with all the bad publicity and outcry against Owens for his snarky remark to a heckler at a previous show, the director of the Arts Complex is threatening to cancel the show. Nancy and her friends have only four hours to solve the mystery, and the only clue Nancy has is a gold button she finds under the bed in Owens' hotel room (which was trashed). Is it the concerned citizens group who thinks that Owen took it too far with the heckler? Is it a former rival of Owens that believes he stole his routine back in college? Or could it be someone else entirely? While Nancy, Bess, George, and Ned try to ferret out the truth, the readers get subjected to pages of why it's so important to be politically correct, and that freedom of speech only applies so long as you don't offend others (was it a left-wing, liberal, Democrat who wrote this book, hoping to push an agenda?). Usually these mysteries take Nancy several days at least, sometimes a week or more. But nope - this time, Nancy manages to crack the case just in the nick of time for Owens to go on stage at the Arts Complex!
Or did she?
Surprisingly enough, the author throws in a twist at the end of the story that manages to redeem the book just a bit. Although I managed to pick up on the clues to this pretty early on, it was nice to see that the author actually followed through with it in an attempt to throw the reader off with all of the sabotage. Uh-huh. That's right. It seems that the actual mystery had nothing whatsoever to do with the sabotaging of Brady Owens' career; no, the actual mystery was the theft of a very expensive painting that was set to be displayed in the Arts Complex the very next day, and all of the sabotage efforts were to keep the police and everyone else from paying attention to what was going on behind the scenes. That was a unique spin for the Diaries series, which has not yet played such a gambit, so I give the author credit for doing this and hope (beyond hope!) that perhaps this is an indication that the series is going to slowly move away from the over-used sabotage trope and start giving us some real meaty mysteries - kidnappings, missing heirs, blackmail, haunted houses (that don't involve sabotage), lost inheritances, etc.
Oh, and before I forget, I did actually learn a new word from this book (which I haven't gotten from a Nancy Drew book in many, many, MANY years). The author uses the word "slaloming" on page 22 to describe Nancy and Ned running through the hotel lobby. Slaloming is to move or race in a winding path, avoiding obstacles. Before Famous Mistakes, I did not know that, and now I do. Let it never be said that I don't give credit where credit is due.
I keep reading, I keep hoping, and I keep my fingers crossed...
RATING: 5 ripped-up notebooks full of jokes out of 10 for pulling that fast-one in the end and proving that in the Nancy Drew universe, there are mysteries other than sabotage.
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