#5- The Secret at Shadow Ranch

                         

The Secret at Shadow Ranch

I wanted to put both the covers in this review : I liked both of them.

But the one the right side , where Nancy wears red jacket , has another story altogether.

I will talk more in detail in below about these two stories.

Rating:

Book Detail:
This is the fifth book in the Nancy Drew Mystery Series , This book was published in 1931 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene and revised edition published in 1965.

Book Read:  Ebook

About Book:
Now there are two books which was published under the same title , I have taken this reference from Wikipedia .

The first book which got published in 1931 has this story:
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This story serves as an introduction to Nancy's friends, Elizabeth "Bess" Marvin and George Fayne as cousins. Along with them Alice Regor, travel with Nancy to Arizona, where the cousins' aunt attempts to keep up a ranch she received as payment of a debt. Nancy reunites Alice with her long-lost artist father, who is suffering from amnesia. She also uncovers the mystery behind why an old mountain woman is guardian of a beautiful young girl, all the while enjoying mountain life, including horseback riding, a flash flood, being lost in the mountains overnight, and a dangerous mountain lion.
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So the first edition , doesn't have any story about the Phantom horse or the treasure. But because of this story the second revised one becomes more exciting to read.

Below the review is written for the second revised edition.

Characters:

Nancy Drew                          Bess Marvin                   George Fayne
Edward Rawely (Mr Ed)       Elizabeth Rawley (Aunt Bet)
Shorty Steele                         Dirk Valentine                Mary Deer
Frances Humber                    Alice Regor                    Bud Moore
Mr Regor (Alice Father)       Dave Greogory               Tex Britten 
Apache Chief (Dog)             Walt Sanders                   Al Diamond  Mrs Thurmond (Cook)            Sid Brice (Bursey) 
             

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My Review :

As you might have seen , How long the Summary itself is .
In this story there was lots of things happening every minute, so much stuff to grasp on. But everything falls in place.
Nancy with her cousins start searching for a treasure in Shadow Ranch as she believes that the other party also is interested in treasure so thats why they are creating this Phantom nuisance to scare away Rawely's. In the same time she also investigates Alice father disappearance. At last they find treasure lying in Dirk Valentine hiding place and also finds Alice Father there. But to come till here , she goes through lots of trouble and escapes in mountain trail and other places. And the story of Frances and Dirk V plays the main part in solving the clues and mystery in this story.

Though solving Phantom mystery doesn't have anything to do with Alice Father disappearance ,as both can be treated as separate problems. But as Alice story was written in the first publication , i guess they didn't want to get part with this story, so they included in revised edition also.
I liked the revised edition story , it has so much to give and told to get hold the reader till the end.
I liked how the story goes beyond the Phantom chase and to Pheonix , Tumbleweed towns and they get some clues from there.
The storyline was perfect till the end , they didn't rushed with any clues and everything fall in place and made believable. Description about the place (Shadow Ranch) was also good and imaginative.

But I still wonder , how could Frances kept herself not telling anyone in family about the letter where she has hidden and why she didn't looked for the treasure , some explanation was given but was not satisfactory.
Also in the story they mentioned about Ned , But this is the 5th book in series and Ned has not come in Nancy life till now , Also in Chapter 1 , Nancy mentions she is knitting a sweater for her father and later in the end she mentions that Ned has to wait a bit longer for the sweater to get finish. I know they mixed this stuff , but its fine , nothing related to mystery . so its fine.

Overall it's Good read.

I will soon start with categorising Nancy Drew stories into different moods .
This story was sure to read when you are in look for rough adventure.

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Summary: (with spoilers)

Nancy is received by her cousins Bess and George at Phoenix air terminal , from here they plan to go to Shadow Ranch to solve a mystery of a Phantom Horse.

Bess and George were already staying at Shadow Ranch for few weeks , so they tell Nancy about the mystery and danger what lies ahead. Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet acquired Shadow Ranch in payment of a debt. So they moved here and began working the property but for the past month there have been so many accidents that they have decided the ranch is being sabotaged. Whenever a Phantom horse appears it follows with some rouble in ranch like Windmills were pulled down.

The story behind Phantom horse is that this horse is the ghost horse of Dirk Valentine who used to love Frances Humber , daughter of local sheriff. But one night when Dirk came to meet Frances he was shot dead by the sheriff and while dying he put a curse vowing that his horse would haunt Shadow Ranch and whenever it appeared , destruction would follow.

So everyone in ranch believes that due to this curse weird things are happening in the ranch

While Bess was telling this story to Nancy , Nancy finds that a person next to him is closely listening to their conversation and then when he leaves , Nancy founds a note in her knitting bag saying "Keep away from Shadow Ranch". They try to catch him but misses him in terminal.

On their way to Shadow Ranch while passing a desert, their car radiator gets heated and somehow they find that there is no water in one jug , so they stay there waiting for some one to pass by. At last search party from Mr Rawely finds them and Dave helps them out of this situation.

When Nancy reach Shadow Ranch , She gets introduced to all the work men there , Ted , Bud , Walt , Dave and Shorty and also Chief (Dog) who is kept for to safe guard chickens. Also she meets Alice , who is staying with Rawely as she is in search for her father who has gone missing from last 6 months after there was a robbery in a local bank.

During Nancy stay in Shadow Ranch , she saw the Phantom Horse many times and with it trouble also follows like wire are cut ,  generator is sabotaged , horses set loose and many more.

Meanwhile during one of her visit to town she saves Mary Deer shop from burglary for which Mary decides to give Nancy a watch which is actually given to Frances from Dirk V. When Nancy enquires more of the story , Mary says that Dirk had send a letter to Frances saying his treasure is hidden for her and as he can't live long so he is giving the treasure to her. But till now no one found the treasure and no one bothered to look at it.

Nancy becomes sure that someone wants Rawley's to leave the ranch so that they can search for the treasure. She explains this to Rawley and they make plans to capture the culprits.

Inside the Dirk watch Nancy finds the secret opening which reveals a torn letter which says treasure in "Green bottle in .. " They start searching for a green bottle in all the places in ranch and during one of the Phantom event she finds that there is a secret door to cellar from spring shed. Later when she explore the place with Bess and George , she finds Dave digging the cellar and when confronted he tells them that he is the successor of Frances family and now he wants some money to send his sister and brother to school so he thought of taking a summer job in ranch and look for treasure. He also shows the other part of the letter which Nancy finds in her watch. The letter contain the word "cellar"

Believing him Nancy and others search and digs the cellar but they don't find any green bottle. When Dave tells them the story what happened on the day Dirk V died , Nancy guesses that Frances might have found the green bottle and in hurry she might have kept it in the lamp which she was lighting at that time when her father came and told her that Dirk is being shot. They find the lamp in the shed with other old items and finds the green bottle hidden in it. They find the letter which says that Dirk has left the treasure in old ranch and the treasure is converted into gold and is hidden at the place which is known to Frances.

Search for treasure starts but nothing is found , Nancy and search party starts exploring the mountains and finds a cabin where they suspect that Alice father might have held or kidnapped. During this time Phantom events occurs and the ranch and animals gets badly hurt. Nancy suspicion falls on Shorty as he was found to be in places where the trouble is seen.

Nancy solves the Phantom horse event , by showing the housekeeper/cook how it is done , she tells her that the Phosphorescent paint is applied on the cloak which horse wears and in night this paint shines in silver shade which makes the horse look like a ghost.

Next day , they start to go to mountains/cliff to make more investigation, Mostly to find Dirk V hiding place and the place where treasure might have been secretly kept. In the cliff , they find Mr Regor tied up and weak, they help him out of his situation, he explains how the team , Shorty, Al Diamond , Bursey had planned the robbery and get way with it and has captured him in the same incident and as cooling period they are staying here and planned to search for treasure by getting rid of Rawely's from the ranch by Phantom act. Nancy search the cliff and finds the horse and the cloak which is used for phantom act  and behind a rock she finds secret tunnel/room and finds the metal box in a pot where the treasure is hidden. In the box there are some cash and gold coins in shape of hearts.

During this time Diamond , Shorty and Bursey finds girls and tie them and seek the treasure from them but Dave and Police comes in time and rescues girls and Mr Regor. Police also finds the robbery money in ghost-town hotel .
Mystery solved.