If you’ve ever read the story of Cinderella, or even if you’ve seen any version of the movie, then be prepared – because in the second Nancy Drew, Girl Detective Super Mystery, Nancy Drew makes her fairy tale debut in Once Upon a Crime. With more pages and additional chapters of mystery, we get a tale that is not only fun to read, but keeps you guessing up to the very end!

What starts out as a dream come true for our favorite sleuth quickly becomes a nightmare! When Nancy Drew gets the chance to meet her favorite mystery author, Hazel Perrault, she jumps at the chance! But to meet her, Nancy must volunteer to assist a local charity renovate an old theatre that was burned by an arsonist years ago into a community center for wayward girls. Always one to help her fellow man, Nancy willingly agrees. Little does she know what she’s getting herself into!

George is having her wisdom teeth pulled and cannot go. Bess must help take care of George, as well as babysit her younger sister, Maggie, and George’s younger brother, Scott, while their respective parents are away on a family reunion (where, it is revealed, Bess’ father and George’s mother are brother and sister). Ned cannot go, either, since he was helping his father out at the newspaper during the week that Nancy was volunteering. So Nancy heads for Tributary Falls with an ensemble of volunteers – an aged man with a name similar to the arsonist who originally set fire to the hotel; a local fashion model who is recently divorced; a young carpenter who is completely enamored with the model; three trouble-making local girls who will be using the new community center; and most unexpected of all – Deirdre Shannon and her cousin, Ashley! With this motley crew, Nancy wonders how anything will be finished in time for the big charity ball at the end of the week to celebrate the opening of the center!

Well, as everyone knows, wherever Nancy goes, mystery is soon to follow! Only this time, Nancy finds herself slowly slipping into Cinderella’s shoes in order to solve this one! After Hazel drops the group into the bed and breakfast next to the hotel, she leaves for a previous engagement that will keep her away from the renovations all week. Nancy suddenly finds that Synndi Aulnoy has put herself in charge – changing the room assignments for everyone so that Nancy is moved into the ladies room of the theatre itself – “in order to watch it at all times and protect it from vandals,” is the reason Synndi gives as Deirdre and Ashley snicker nearby. Nancy finds herself Cinderella to Synndi’s wicked stepmother and Deirdre and Ashley’s wicked step-sisters. So, instead of helping transform and design the new center, Nancy finds herself cooking meals, washing dishes, cleaning up after everyone else as they plan the renovations to the center! Frustrated, but never one to give in to pettiness, Nancy reminds herself time and again that she is there to help, not complain. But when she overhears a mysterious conversation on a phone extension between a man and a woman who are making plans to “exchange” something so that “no one will realize it’s gone until it’s too late,” Nancy realizes she has a mystery on her hands! But who can she trust? George, Bess, and Ned are all back in River Heights. She’s all alone with no free time to sleuth!

A large jug discovered, a fire in the theatre, a burned dress for the ball, a near fatal car crash, a locked attic room, and a ballroom dance with Hazel’s son, Jake, all add up to one finely played out fairy tale – and another solved mystery for Nancy Drew!

While last year’s Super Mystery gave us a taste of Bess and George doing their best to follow in their friend’s footsteps, this year’s Super Mystery shows us just how much Nancy is willing to endure to get to the bottom of a mystery! Can Nancy survive long enough to solve the mystery and become the belle of the ball? By page 185, you’ll know the answer to that one!

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