Friday, November 22, 2019

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Golden Pavilion


    "One of Mr. Drew's new clients, Mr. Sakamaki, requests Nancy's help solving a mystery. Mr. Sakamaki recently inherited his grandfather's estate in Hawaii, but two strangers arrive, claiming to also be the grandchildren of his deceased grandfather. Can Nancy uncover the truth?" [x]

- This book opens differently from the others. Usually Nancy is discussing a new case with someone but this one opens with Nancy in a helicopter bringing Togo home from a dog show "in a city some distance away". Not quite sure why Nancy is taking a helicopter home but ok.

- Why would Mr. Sakamakis grandfather will his home to "any living grandchildren" if Mr. Sakamaki was the only grandchild? If I was him or Mr. Drew I would see this as possible evidence that there really is other children.

- Ned, Burt, and Dave just happen to be going to Honolulu at the same time as Nancy. I always thought poor Nancy can't go anywhere without Ned having to show up but lately it seems poor Ned can't go anywhere without Nancy showing up.

- Ned and the boys stay at the Halekulani Hotel which is still in operation. As is Volcano House where the whole gang stays for a night.

- The dark lei with the poison tacks gets handled a lot and surprisingly no one gets poked with a tack.


- I think Its really adorable how Nancy buys a lei for her father when at the airport. The description of her standing there with Ned eagerly waiting for her dad to get off the plane was just very cute.

- I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure the Roy and Janet couldn't legally move into Kaluakua when the estate has not been settled yet and their claim to it is still being investigated. The caretaker should have just called the police and got them removed.

- George saying she needed to go grab her purse from her bedroom before Roy claims it as part of the estate made me laugh, I love George's humor sometimes.

- While trapped under the pavilion Ned tries opening the door by lunging at it. Why did he not simply lay on his back and kick it since they only had about 3 feet of height to move in.

- It's pretty horrifying how much the ancient cape made from extinct bird feathers is thrown around.

    A little side note, I looked up Hawaiian capes made from o-o bird feathers and they're really lovely and don't look how you would think they'd look. Definitely not how its drawn in the frontispieces illustration.

    This book was ok. The amount of travelling around Hawaii was boring and the whole scavenger hunt seemed a bit ridiculous. The fact that there was a whole legitimate gang behind the mystery wasn't appealing to me. Not to mention the gang name Double Scorps is stupid. I didn't remember much from this book except for the feather cape being in the top of the pavilion so that kinda took away any suspense.

    To be honest this book actually made me long for the Vicki Barr book Clue of the Broken Blossoms which features Vicki in Hawaii. I did not enjoy that book but it had a lot more of a Hawaiian feel to it which is obviously important when that's the selling point of the book.

    Oh, also got to mention how great the cover art for this book is. The pavilion isn't draw especially well but the ghostly figure is great and the fact that one of the boys (Ned?) is there instead of George is pretty cool.



No comments:

Post a Comment