Book Review for A-Z Title Challenge: Nancy Drew: The Demon of River Heights

Book: Nancy Drew: The Demon of River Heights (Nancy Drew: Girl Detective Graphic Novels book #1) by Stefan Petrucha with illustrations by Sho Murase

Rating: 2 stars

Review:

This was okay, definitely not as good as reading a regular Nancy Drew mystery book. It was way too easy to figure out.

In this story, Nancy and her two best friends Bess and George were trying to figure out what happened to two missing college students who earlier had been making a film in the woods about a monster. Was it possible that there really was a monster in the woods who had taken the students?

Besides trying to find missing students, Nancy was also asked by her father to see if she could keep an eye on entrepreneur Canton Agley II and his son Todd to see if they were up to anything suspicious.

The entrepreneur was in town looking for a new investment but Nancy's father didn't quite believe it.

This had a fast-paced story with a some what interesting mystery. There were a few scenes that were a little ridiculous (Nancy punching a bear in the woods, really) and I did find that the story wasn't as suspenseful and exciting as a regular Nancy Drew mystery. Also, Nancy didn't really find a lot of clues (she did look around a bit for one scene) nor gather a lot of information before the big reveal or should I say info dump.

There was also something else I didn't really like and that was the author made Nancy somewhat ditzy and forgetful, she couldn't remember to buy gas for her car. That to me just seemed as if it was only included as a way to move the story along. At times I thought all three girls seemed less than smart but something I did like about this story was the friendship between Nancy, Bess and George, it was probably the best thing about this.

Despite the few things I didn't like about this, it is a quick read but it just feels really dumbed down. The artwork wasn't bad it had a cartoony/manga look to it.

This might not have been the best but I still would like to read at least one or two more books from this series to see if perhaps the writing/mystery telling improves as well as the characters.