Jessaka's Reviews > The Secret of the Old Clock

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

Journalist, Mildred Wirt had been hired to write this series that Edward Stratemeyer had created. He sent her an outline of the story, and in 4 weeks she had it finished and sent back to him. He accepted it as it was written even though he felt that it had taken too much time for her to get to the action in the story. He was so correct, as I was bored myself until more than half way into the book. (This information on Edward’s displeasure with the story can be found in the biography of Mildred Wirt, “Missing Millie Benson.”)

The Secret in the Old Clock was published in 1930 and was the first Nancy Drew book to hit the market, and this, during the Great Depression. It sold for only 50 cents, a price that many could still afford to pay. It became a great success and continues to be to this very day. (Missing Millie Benson)

Nancy Drew is a young sixteen year old blonde haired girl who wished to become a detective. I was sixteen years old when I first began reading this series, having first found “The Secret in the Old Attic” in my mom’s hallway closet where she kept her books.

Nancy’s mother had died when she was three years old, and she lives with her father, Carson Drew, who is a criminal and mystery case attorney. Her father’s sister, Hannah, also lives with them. Nancy has a friend named Helen who doesn’t become involved in this mastery with her, unlike her other friends in this series. And most importantly, Nancy has a blue roadster. Now a roadster would be fun to own.

In this first story, Old Man Crowley has died and left his estate to relatives that had never treated him kindly, relatives that no one in town really cared about and who believed that the estate had fallen into the wrong hands. But there is a talk of another will that Crowley had written at a later date. Where is it? And that is where Nancy begins her career as a young detective. “If there is a will,” she says, “there is a way,” to find the will.

Nancy had driven into the city to run an errand for her father, but on the way home she had taken the scenic route along River Road. Now that had to have been fun driving her blue roadster along the river’s road. But she also realized that a storm was brewing and hoped to get home before this happened because the road could get pretty muddy and dangerous. Alas, she was not to get home before the rain; instead she saw a farm house with a barn and quickly drove into the barn in order to get out of the rain. She was greeted by a couple of young girls who were related to Old Man Crowley and who were much more worthy of his inheritance, as she soon found out.

So, the story crawled on. Nancy began talking to other relatives and then one woman who cared for him when he was ill. Then she went to see the relatives that had inherited his estate, and this is where the story finally picked up, and I found that I couldn’t put the book down after that.

Note: Copyright 1930
Written by Mildred Wirt

January 23, 2019 My second reading and review of this book.