Golden Age of Detective Fiction

The Password to Larkspur Lane is the 10th Nancy Drew adventure and the third ghostwritten by Walter Karig before a new deal is made between Mildred A. Wirt and the Edward Stratemeyer syndicate for her to return to the series under the Carolyn Keene pseudonym. Initially published in 1933, The Password at Larkspur Lane was revamped in 1966 for a more modern audience, and this is the version I’ll be reviewing today.

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The Story

Nancy Drew is in her garden picking flowers for an upcoming flower show competition when a carrier pigeon crashes onto her lawn. The injured pigeon has a strange message tied to its leg.

The message reads: “trouble here. After five o’clock, bluebells will be singing horses. Come tonight.” It’s a cryptic puzzle that piques Nancy’s curiosity.

Intrigued by the nonsensical message, Nancy notes the serial numbers on the carrier pigeon’s ring: 2-21-12-12. After the flower show, she decides to write to the national homing pigeon agency for more information about the pigeon.

After the flower show, she witnesses a chilling scene-her doctor being forced into a black saloon car bearing a license plate with the same number. The doctor is taken to an isolated sanitarium where he is to tend to an older woman with extensive injuries. The older woman isn’t allowed to speak to the doctor, but she manages to slip a locket with a message hidden inside his hands before he is blindfolded and taken home.

Upon his return to Nancy’s house, the doctor, for some unknown reason, chooses to confide in Nancy about the captive woman, rather than the police. This unexpected revelation adds another layer of intrigue to the unfolding mystery.

Nancy, Bess, and George figure out that Larkspurs are a synonym for Bluebells and manage to find the sanitorium where the older woman is held captive. The sleuth around determines that she’s being held captive so she can be swindled out of her fortune.

As if Nancy doesn’t have enough to do, she courageously attempts to free this captive woman with no help from the River Heights police force. Her old friend Helen Archer (nee Corning) approaches her to see if Nancy can figure out who is terrorizing her grandparents with a strange blue fire that appears at night like a phantom.

Undeterred by the eerie circumstances, Nancy, Bess, and George bravely wait outside Helen’s grandparents’ house in a large field at night. Their courage is soon put to the test when the ghostly ring of fire appears, drawing them into the heart of the mystery. chase the culprits, they are surprised to find a connection to their other case!

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The Review

The Password to Larkspur Lane is throwing a lot at the wall. There’s not one, but two mysteries involving terrorizing older people to get something from them. (This is a favorite story beat with Karig, who also wrote The Sign of the Twisted Candles, which also features an older man being held against his will to steal his fortune.) Thankfully, Nancy Drew is on the case!

At first, Nancy may come off as a little insufferable- of course, she knows all about flower growing and arranging, and she has an encyclopedic knowledge of homing pigeons. As most 18-year-old girls did in 1966, I assume. Coupled with her first-rate skin diving skills, she has superb swimming skills- which appear in this book because she saves a drowning child. Nancy is riding the line of being a Mary Sue, but her unique character traits keep the readers intrigued and interested.

However, Nancy has some real grit in this book; she hides in a field, chases criminals, climbs a wall with her bare hands, and saves herself from being thrown into an empty cistern. There’s a lot of action- running around catching bad guys, snooping after suspects in her new car, and even some bare-handed athleticism in this book, which makes it adventurous and cool for young ladies to be rugged.

Nancy is also a good friend- there’s no more ill will between George, Bess, and Nancy like in the previous mystery—the Sign of the Twisted Candles. The three of them are camped out in the field chasing mysterious blue-flamed ghosts and running around a shady sanitorium, looking for clues about shady caretakers together.

Besides the core trio, Nancy is aided by Helen Archer, who has been in previous books such as The Mystery at Lilac Inn, where Nancy helped Helen catch a jewel thief. Helen doesn’t usually team up with Nancy’s trio, so it’s a lot of fun to see her join in the antics- even if she has a more reduced role than other books.

If that isn’t enough of a representation of girl power, Nancy, Bess, George, and Helen are joined by a zany cousin, Effie, who is as weird and flighty as Nancy. Effie contrasts the plucky girl detectives nicely and provides comic relief against the other girls.

If that isn’t a large enough teen cast, then don’t worry because Ned Nickerson is home from Emerson College and comes with his entourage of potential boyfriends for Bess and George to provide a little romance and, of course, help save Nancy in the final act.

The Password at Larkspur Lane has the whole gang together- like an Avenger movie, and together, they will thwart some fires and bombings and dastardly gangs running amok. If that doesn’t sound like enough, there’s an entire subplot about Hannah Gruen and themes about police incompetence that I haven’t even touched on.

Plus, did I mention Nancy has a new car? Because she mentions it about 3735392904 times in this story.

So there’s a lot in this story,y and nearly all of the connections between plotlines seem ridiculous. Nancy runs around like a Rainman who knows everything from flower arranging to code-breaking.

Is The Password to Larkspur Lane a good mystery- not really. Most of the clues land into Nancy’s lap, and her seemingly bottomless knowledge of completely random bodies of knowledge is bewildering- I mean, she doesn’t need to consult one library or card catalog or talk to an adult about anything.

However, it is an entertaining adventure story with the girls getting into and out of many physical scrapes, which is usually the purview of boy detective stories. The story’s entertaining nature keeps the readers engaged and amused, especially as it shows how girls can be challenged mentally and physically, especially in times of danger.

I also really liked that several core friendships were brought into the story, and I saw everyone interact with Nancy and each other. That didn’t happen much in mystery stories when The Password at Larkspur Lane was written.

A mediocre mystery with dynamic character moments and entertaining action earns The Password to Larkspur Lane a solid 3.5/5 stars from me.

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Nancy Drew Mystery Series Reviews:

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