The 99 Steps

The story involves the ancient practice of alchemy, and the equally ancient practice of cheating people out of their money. In this case Nancy, George and Bess go to France to work with Mr. Drew who is trying to convince a financier to stop selling all his assets.

A woman Nancy knows has nightmares of falling down a long flight of stairs. As happens every so often, someone tries to stop Nancy from going to France by sending her a message. Even once in France someone tries to stop her and seems quite willing to kill her to accomplish that.

There's some interesting background information on both France and alchemy in the story. There's also some problems with the story, though.

The main problem is how Bess is behaving. She becomes so centered on stopping to get something to eat that her actions basically threaten Nancy's investigation as, at the moment, they were hot on the trail of the truth. Bess also is really whiny and complaining, way more than usual. It gets to the point that it seems it would have been much better simply to leave Bess back in the U.S. while Nancy and George did what was necessary in France.

Which brings up George. In this story she seems quite careless, her carelessness causing her to be caught by one of the bad guys. All of this tends to take away from the story itself which is quite interesting.

A rather uneven Nancy Drew mystery.

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