Keith and Lulu discuss real estate and romance in this month’s Nancy Drew adventure,
The Message in the Hollow Oak.

Lulu: You know, this being the second 30’s-era edition we’ve discussed, I can really see why there is such outrage from hardcore Nancy fans about the revised editions of the series. These earlier ones are incredible!

Keith: Totally. It’s amazing how awesome these stories are, how much actual danger Nancy is in and how confident she is back then. In this one she even blows stuff up!
Talk about Ms. Dynamite…

L: Yeah, and you better not get in her way…

K: Don’t even try!

L: It all starts when Nancy wins a radio contest. The prize? A deed to a tract of
Canadian land!

K: A rather unusual prize…

L: I thought so, too. It turns out to be a mixed blessing because – Enemy alert! – there’s a pair of crooks named Tom Stripe and Raymond Niles that are after her land. As if!

K: Right. Since there’s talk of gold on her newly-acquired property Nancy, George and Bess take off to the Great White North, with those two crooks following their every move. They really give Nancy a run for her money! They lie, cheat and steal. They forge documents. They torture her acquaintances. They even shoot her wilderness guide,
Pete Atkins!

L: But they are no match for Nancy and her girlz!

K: Those crooks don’t stand a chance because our Nancy is super BAD!

L: She’s DOPE!

K: Word.

L: Speaking of words, Nancy meets a writer on the train to Canada…

K: Yes, this brings us to the big story in The Message in the Hollow Oak. There’s another mystery intertwined with this land dispute. You know Nancy loves to multitask!

L: Definitely. I’ll recap… On the train Nancy strikes up a conversation with a mystery writer named Ann Chapelle. She is glamorous, a successful "authoress" who also writes screenplays in Hollywood, but Nancy senses some unhappy secrets. Suddenly, their train crashes! Nancy’s thrown from her seat and lands in a pile of debris. Other cars begin to catch fire. It’s pandemonium!

K: Our girl keeps her cool, though – even as she realizes blood trickling down her own forehead – and searches for her friends and the troubled writer.

L: Miss Chapelle eventually turns up at the local Good Hope Hospital, but she’s seriously injured. Nancy visits her and the authoress says "I shall die – I know it. I am glad you came, for there is something I must tell you. The message – in the hollow oak…" and then falls unconscious. Oooh, this part was a real page-turner!

K: So dramatic… Nancy is called back to the hospital the following day just as Miss Chapelle is to have a life-saving operation. She tells the teen sleuth how she and a secret love maintained a correspondence in the hollow of an old oak tree near Nancy’s property and asks her to relay a message to the two most important people in her life: her grandfather and her long-lost love.

L: Nancy does more than just relay a message. Over the course of the story, she ends up finding and saving each of these men from horrible deaths!

K: We’re always talking about how Nancy brings people together…

L: That’s what solving mysteries is all about! I always love the part at the end when the characters are reunited and it feels so good…

K: Yeah, in this one Miss Chapelle and her true love are married and decide to build their home near the "letterbox" oak tree. It’s a very poetic ending!

L: All the more so since Nancy also brings home the gold. Her Dad says, "How do
you want it? In coins, or one huge bar?" Nancy replies, "I think gold coins would be
more useful."

K: True dat.

L: True dat. Tune in next month for The Mystery of the Ivory Charm!

07/2003