Marvin Heiferman & Carole Kismaric: The Mysterious Case Of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys

Since 1927, dozens of authors calling themselves Carolyn Keene or Franklin W. Dixon have written hundreds of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, respectively, in which the teen sleuths solve pretty much the same mysteries over and over again. Nancy is the teen daughter of a famous attorney; she has her own sports car, a "close young-man friend" whom she never actually dates, lots of sporty tennis dresses and sweater sets, and no mother. She usually winds up in a makeshift hiding place, almost but not quite discovered while the villain walks around nearly finding her and muttering the clue that springs the case wide open. Frank and Joe Hardy, the sons of a famous detective, have lots of nifty toys—at one point in the interminable series, their ages had to be adjusted to allow them to fly their airplane—no significant girlfriends, and a tight-lipped, anemic mother who always makes them wear their sweaters. Frank usually gets them lost, at which point the villain knocks Joe unconscious, angrily muttering the clue that springs the case wide open before scurrying away, and Frank gets them found again. America's least hard-boiled detective series has introduced millions of kids to the world of reading, and now Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman have assembled a small social history of these teen-sleuth books, covering everything from their portrayal of the occasional non-WASP character to the short-lived '70s TV shows, to the modern Drew/Hardys incarnations, in which Frank and Joe know supermodels and front rap groups while Nancy trades her sports car for a blue van and starts kissing boys. The Mysterious Case's core theme, exploring the public's continued fascination with these books, makes for fine light reading, touching upon many of the cultural changes in American teens and pre-teens over the last 60 years, making this a decent book for any fan, mystery lover, or children's-book collector. It's incredibly well-illustrated, with images taken mostly from the post-war books which showcase the series' weird combination of adventure, naivete, and eternal optimism: Could Nancy really hide from someone by remaining motionless behind an empty picture frame? Of course, The Mysterious Case is as much a remembrance and celebration of the books as a serious exploration, so don't expect much of a social critical viewpoint. Issues of race, class, and creed in the subtext are ignored, which is too bad, because like most youth books, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys are chock full of them. Still, as straight-ahead light pop-culture history, this is fun stuff.