The Secret of the Old Clock

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, 180 pages

In this, Nancy Drew's first adventure as a teenage sleuth, the young detective and her lawyer father agree that there's something fishy about old eccentric Josiah Crowley leaving his fortune to the uppity Topham family when he'd apparently told several needier friends and family members that he'd remember them in his will. Nancy's convinced that a later will exists and is hidden somewhere that the Tophams will never think to look, and her investigation takes her on an adventure filled with crude thieves, an afternoon adrift on a lake, and some light breaking and entering. I read this book to my eight-year-old son, and had no idea that estate law would be so captivating for him. Yet, he loved the book, and is clamoring for the next Nancy Drew mystery. The Hidden Staircase, here we come!