Review: Nancy Drew 48: The Crooked Banister

Nancy Drew 48: The Crooked Banister by Carolyn Keene
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Apparently, one of the spookiest plots in the Nancy Drew-Carolyn Keene series; The Crooked Banister is a novel about the mystery of a man who is known to be a clever swindler. He has a record of swindling many people with his mischievously planned schemes. Even his own family members have no clue about his whereabouts or his current hiding place. All they know about, is a spooky mansion that this man had created for himself – though, the mansion is revealed to be designed like a brilliant work of art.

As Nancy Drew, together with the group of her friends, joins forces with the sister of this man, they set out on an adventurous hunt inside this ghastly mansion. The mansion unfolds itself with a small river which occasionally sets on fire and a bridge which has been programmed to break itself into halves and to hide itself from the viewers by drowning below into the river. An unusual staircase – at the other side of which, is a giant bookshelf, which, revolves. A creepy robot and a number of tapes programmed into it; some of which are horribly destructive while some help Nancy reveal the secrets of this mysterious house. This robot almost causes Nancy and her friends to lose their lives. In addition, there is a wall full of portraits which had been coated in black ink poisoned with serpent poisons. Several other clues like these are discovered during their search.

Also, this man appears to have another man, named Clyde, as his partner in these clever schemes. Clyde too is a swindler who takes advantage of the poverty of poor Indian kids, and uses their names to collect money from people on the name of donations. As his mask cracks, he reveals some excellent clues about the mysteries of the mansion.

But there is one thing about this novel. When the story comes to an end, yet, Nancy doesn’t get to meet the man behind all this, the real swindler and the designer of this spooky mansion.

Why?

Well, you’d have to read the novel to discover this secret!


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