The Clue in the Camera

This is probably the most illogical, violence-filled Nancy Drew book I have ever read.

The basic story is that Nancy, Hannah and George (but not Bess) go to San Francisco. There they meet a photographer/journalist Emily. From that point on things get bad quickly. Emily's camera is stolen, her apartment is broken into and ransacked, a thug watches the apartment, more thugs try to kill Nancy when she's on the docks, they also try to kill Nancy when she's on a bridge, there's a once-crooked gallery manager and one other thug that seems to not mean Nancy harm but there's no way to be sure.

Here's just some of the problems:

1. The story establishes that there's a meeting of thugs where Nancy and the others are which is in San Francisco. The papers know about it yet the police don't seem to be making any sort of preparations. No calls for extra help, no plans for dealing with them, etc.

2. Emily gets a threatening call. Does Nancy have her call the police right away? No. Yet the woman had already been the victim of a thug (who stole her camera) and there's crooks in town but she doesn't let the police know right away?

3. Nancy witholds information from Lt. Chin who she knows she can trust. Isn't that a bad thing to do? (And maybe involve a charge of obstructing justice?)

4. This is the most violence-filled book in the series that I have read. A woman's camera is stolen. Her apartment is ransacked. Nancy is almost kill at the docks and on a bridge. A woman is kidnapped and another is hurt pretty badly.

5. There's another reporter who thinks nothing of breaking into Emily's when she's not there. He is way too over-the-top form of a reporter.

6. As many times as Nancy has been in danger, why hasn't she taken any form of martial arts classes? She could have dealt with the thugs on the bridge if she had (and had gotten any good at it which she probably would have done.)

7. After Nancy gets chased by two thugs who want to kill her she ends up elsewhere at a place that gives her a clue to what is going on. Does she call Lt. Chin and inform him of the murder attempt and what she has found? No. She calls Hannah and George to have them come there. WHAT? With people out to kill her she calls them and thereby exposes them to the same danger WITHOUT having any help from a policeman who she has already worked with?

8. The thugs trap Nancy and George in a tunnel along with someone else. It's pretty much a place that no ones checks so instead of killing them there they decide to take them for a walk, go to their boat, and then go out on the water with the idea of killing them there and dumping their bodies overboard. No plans to weight the bodies so they would stay down. No consideration that the bodies might wash up (since they weren't very far from land), be found by the police and cause a big investigation.

I have to consider this the single worst Nancy Drew book I have ever read.


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