Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #96: The Case of the Photo Finish (1990)

River Heights is randomly selected as the site of some massive games event like the Olympics but for high school students. Both Nancy's family and George's family agree to take in girls running against each other. Nancy winds up with Cheryl, but George winds up with Marta, a girl from Germany who kinda seems like a bitch. Her trainer Helga shows up with her and demands to stay in their home.

It turns out that someone wants Cheryl to lose real bad. Among the suspects are Eric, a photographer, Steve, his main competition, Willy, some random dude who barely turns up in the book, and both Helga and Marta. During the first celebration event, someone pushes Cheryl off the stage, but she manages to catch herself at the last possible second. A random Swiss girl claims she saw someone push Cheryl, but when Nancy talks to her, she can't actually remember what she saw.

Cheryl gets threatening phone calls at Nancy's house, someone coats her gym bag in honey, and someone leaves a threatening note on their doorstep that warns her to drop out. She thinks the honey is a clear sign that Marta is behind everything because apparently Germans use honey when training or something. Someone then puts something in her path that she trips over and almost injures herself so bad that she needs to drop out.

Nancy kinda suspects this girl named Barbara. She pops up and requests that Marta do an interview with her but Helga refuses. Though she claims that she's there on assignment, she later admits that she's a freelancer. She approaches Nancy while wearing a very visible wire and tries to get her to say on record that she's investigating something. Barbara is also there with Steve when Cheryl trips. She admits that someone tipped her off that a big story would unfold and that when she realized what the person meant, she wanted to run away before anyone suspected her.

Annelise is another runner and one of the only ones from Germany. She agrees to help Nancy and keep an eye on things when she can't be there. They find her upset in the locker room because she spilled guava juice all over her warm up suit and had to get a new one. Nancy has stuff on her mind though because someone tried to run her and Cheryl off the road, which led to her finding out that she had no brakes. It turns out that someone actually cut the brake line.

As much as I would like to recap this book more in depth, not a lot happens. Carson and George's parents invite a whole crap load of people out to dinner one night, but George's dad then finds that his car won't start. Annelise briefly disappears and comes back just in time to fix the car. When Eric realizes his bag is missing, he freaks out and blames Steve because the bag has ALL his photos from the events over the last few days. Annelise conveniently finds the missing bag but the photos are gone.

Cut to the next day and the big race between Cheryl and Marta. They tie, which leaves the founders checking the camera footage to see who finished first. Nancy somehow puts everything together and realizes Annelise was behind the threats. She hoped to get Cheryl to drop out and frame Marta, which would help her win the big race. The cops show up and make her open her bag, where they find all of Eric's missing film. They presumably take her away, and the organizers come back with some big news. It turns out that Cheryl and Marta crossed the finish line at the exact same time, so they get to share the gold medal. Whatever.

*There's a random suspect named Ramsey who keeps showing up and shooting daggers at Cheryl or just acting really snappy around her. It takes Nancy way too long to realize that they dated and he isn't happy that Cheryl dumped him.

*Bess doesn't care though. She joins his cheering section and mentions that there are many women rooting for him.

*When I say that nothing happened, I really mean it. I kept skimming big chunks of the book because it was like Nancy chatting with someone and adding them to her suspect list when they didn't do anything.