Mrs. Melody and her husband have recently been swindled by Rawley Bannister. He sold them some land which they later found out belonged to a Navajo reservation. They've hired Carson Drew to help get their money back so Nancy, Mr. Drew, and Mrs. Melody travel to Mountianville, Rawley Banisters hometown, to try to track him down. There Nancy, along with Bess, George, Ned, Burt, and Dave, explore Rawley's sinisterly strange (and dangerous) house.
- I was surprised how tame the illustration of Rawley Banisters house is. It's described as having slanted walls and grotesque geometric shaped bushes. It's almost as though the illustrator didn't want to draw an ugly house. Although the picture does show slanted chimneys, a windowed turret, and protruding add-on's to the house, I still found it rather tame and not at all how I pictured it.
- After the motel fire Nancy discovers a long match outside her motel room. Instead of calling the fire inspectors, who are currently in the motel room investigating, to come see it she quietly takes it to use as evidence later. I hate when the stories have Nancy working against the authorities, almost as though she sees them as competition.
- At one point Nancy gets a call from someone claiming to be Thomas Banister telling her to drop the case. Nancy quickly learns the caller was actually Rawley. Nancy is very unbothered by the fact she just unknowingly spoke to the mysterious man she's searching for. Meanwhile I was tripping out about it!
- After doing some sleuthing at Rawley's house the group is just about to leave when a man comes walking up. It's Thomas Banister whom Mrs. Carrier is surprised to see because he has previously said he'd never step foot in Rawley's house. To this Nancy replies with "Everyone is allowed to change their mind, don't you think?". That seemed quite a bit snarky to me. In fact if George had been the one to say it I would think it was intended to be snarky!
- Later on when at a restaurant with Mrs. Carrier and Thomas Banister, Bess orders a large dessert; "Nancy expected a tart comment from George about her plumpish cousins selection, but she said nothing. Apparently George only criticizes Bess when the three girls were alone." Again, this sounds strangely snarky.
- Honestly there's a lot sentences here and there that are just weird and don't match the writing style of the majority of Nancy Drew books. I had to check to make sure this one was written by Harriet Stratemeyer.
- I think its a little dubious that Mrs. Carrier would give money to Clyde Mead when her brother is currently in trouble for swindling people. You think she'd be more alert.
- I don't understand the poison nails on the pictures. If the nails are somehow attached to the portraits wouldn't they be noticeable? How are they painted over? How are they holding down money without destroying the money (i.e. glue)? I can't visualize them at all and really wonder how Harriet Stratemeyer did.
- The side plot of this book mentions "Indians" and you know a Nancy Drew book can't pass up the opportunity to use some racial stereotypes. The native Americans have names like Sleepy Deer and Singing Brook, Nancy gains their trust by stopping her horse from running away (quite convenient her horse decided to make a bolt for it right as the Native Americans were starting to be suspicious of her), the words "rain dance" and "powwow" are used right away, and the Native Americans don't reach out to the authorize about Rawley Banister because they're scared of the white men. This whole stereotype was so outdated by 1971, c'mon Harriet get with the times.
- At one point Mrs. Melody kinda just f*cks off back home and we don't hear of her again.
- I don't buy the ending. In my opinion Rawley's out there living his life under a false identity complete with forged documents and everything. He could be your next door neighbor for all we know.
Honestly I just really don't like this book. The books from the 1970's in general aren't my cup of tea. At the time the spy genre was really hot and you can see how the futuristic, technical, gadgets influenced the books (the robot in this case).
I think this was my third time reading this and I really don't want to read it ever again.
