Madge Sterling: The Missing Formula

    "Orphan Anne Fairaday faces a life of poverty upon the death of her father. The only thing that can prevent it is finding his latest experiment. She enlisted her new found friend, Madge Sterling, an outdoors girl who has a knack for finding missing things. But they must race against time as there are also several people who will stop at nothing to get it first" [x]

    The first time I read this book I was quickly thrown for a bit of a loop. Everything within the first few pages was so familiar and not in a vague way. I already knew the characters, the setting, and the whole story. I quickly realized that this book was the uncredited basis for a computer game I had played; Miss Clue Formula For Danger.

    The Miss Clue games are pretty much rip-offs of the Nancy Drew computer games so it's not surprising they're based off of other books by Mildred Wirt. The two other books in the Madge Sterling series also have games based off them. I'll add more info about the games at the bottom of this post because I actually really like them.

- The way Madge's parents are mentioned it seems as though there could have been plans for her to find her missing father if the series had continued à la the Maxie series.

- Would Anne be legally allowed to remain on Steward Island alone? She is a minor after all.

- When Anne mentions trying to get a loan from the bank Madge remarks that her uncle said banks were reluctant to give loans at the time. That's because it was the great depression. I've remarked before how I love when real life events are worked into these old books.

- It really is great luck Madge just happened to be interested in the Kippling book instead of one of the many books in the Fairaday library.

- After Anne's house gets robbed in the night of her silverware, she thinks someone could be trying to scare her away. She ignores the fact that Clyde had showed up saying she owed him money and then her semi valuable silverware is gone. Also her fathers laboratory is ransacked the same night Clyde says he has Anne's fathers formula. C'mon girls, use your logic.

- Madge just happens to take a wrong trail on Stewart island and happens to trip on the log containing the missing silverware.

- The girls debate on leaving the book with the secret formula at Stewart island or at the Lodge before deciding on the lodge. I don't understand why they would leave it anywhere, they should have been keeping that book within their arms 24/7.

- It's very foolish of the girls to hide the book in the cabin in the woods. Especially when Madge thinks someone was watching them.

- The first time I read this book I was annoyed at how Clyde is allowed to go free and receives no legal action against him. This time I'm ok with it. I guess it seemed less serious because Clyde had worked with Anne father, knew Anne, and had been in her home a lot during his work. It seems more like he was an old family friend, even if not on friendly terms anymore.

    I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. It's not my favorite, that's for sure, but it's not terrible. I think the game might have affected the way I see it..

    By the way, when I started this book I was in a bit of a reading slump so I decided to give an audio book a try. I listened to this on LibirVox, which is a wonderful site full of free audio books all read by volunteers. This one was read by Mary Escano who even did all the characters dialogue in voices. Lack of distinction between characters speaking is a big reason I don't normally listen to audio books so I really appreciated that. If you like audio books then I recommend it.

    Now let us talk about the Miss Clue games. These games started coming out years ago on virtualfamilykingdom.com. They were free to play and released in serialized chapters. There was 5 games made; three Madge sterling ones; Formula for Danger, Cruise Most Deadly, The Haunted Garden, and then Peril at Pemberly and Trials of Salem which are not related to Madge Sterling. The last seemed to be an attempt to pre rip-off the Nancy Drew game Midnight in Salem. Although there was plans for more games there hasn't been any updates in over a year. At this point I don't have much hope there will be more but I certainly would love it if there was.

Anyways I believe the games are still free on VK, I couldn't remember my account login info so I couldn't verify but it's still being advertised on the website. 

    Because I listened to an audiobook I didn't have a physical copy to scan so the image I used comes from an eBay listing of this book which is long gone.