The Nancy Drew Files #43: False Impressions (1990)

I'll be upfront and let you know that this review isn't as long or as good as most. This is what happens when you try to read and watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend at the same time. Seriously though, how good was the first season of that show? I've seen every season, but the first one is my favorite.

Anyway, Nancy is at her house with Bess and George when Ned shows up with two movies to watch. He's home from college on break, and Nancy promised that she would focus on him instead of solving a crime for once. Chief McGinnis shows up on her doorstep though with a lieutenant from the next town over. He's there to arrest Nancy.

As it turns out, someone swindled a few people out of their money and gave him the name Nancy Drew. The lieutenant has her to do a line up with some other chicks with reddish blonde hair. Neither victim recognizes her as the Nancy Drew they know, so he lets her go. Mrs. Hackney, the first victim, sees her in the station and claims she's the same woman she talked to before. The little old lady can't see without her glasses and has to guess what color eyes Nancy has, so the cops let her go anyway.

Brenda, this chick who went to school with them and then went to work at her dad's newspaper, starts snooping around. She shows up at six am with a photographer to take pictures of Nancy for a story in the paper. Nancy has to literally explain to her what libel is and the difference between an arrest and a conviction. This does give Nancy the idea to go undercover at Brenda though.

Bess and George help her dye her hair black, and she suddenly looks so different that even Ned isn't sure who she is at first. Nancy learns that Hackney had a firecracker placed on her engine that exploded went it went off. Someone then left a note that claimed the person could get a bomb in her car just as easily and asked for $10,000. The fake Nancy then showed up with claims that she worked for the police, helped her get the money together, and then took off. Fake Nancy did similar things with a bunch of other people.

Hackney belongs to a country club and has a new boyfriend. Carson thinks Aiken, the boyfriend, might be Joe Crain, a former thief who swindled older ladies out of money in a similar fashion. Nancy learns that Aiken is older than the other guy though, and then Crain turns up dead. She also meets Andrea, Aiken's niece and the one who put him up for membership in the club.

Since everyone thinks that Nancy is Brenda, they have no problem telling her everything they know. Ned helps her out on the case by fake confronting her in the club and warning her to stay away from his girl. She winds up almost getting hit by a station wagon that then takes off. Ned and George also go undercover as police detectives but don't find anything new.

This all leads up to Nancy randomly stumbling across Aiken and Andrea. It turns out that they're actually husband and wife and that they swindle people in one town and then move on to the next. Andrea was the fake Nancy too. When they learn that she overheard them, they take her hostage and lock her up in a suitcase in their trunk.

Nancy get out – of course – and throws a wig at the fake woman to distract her. Since the woman is behind the wheel, this is a bad move. The car starts going off the road, but Nancy karate kicks the gun out of the hand of the fake Aiken. This disorients him, and Nancy then has to use her feet, since her hands are still tied, to put the car in park and save them all. Ned rushes up to her as the cops arrive and makes her promise to focus on him for the rest of his vacation.

*The lieutenant who comes to her house has an actual arrest warrant for her, but when no one can pick her out of the line up, he lets her go. Um, that's not how that works? An arrest warrant is literally a warrant for someone's arrest, not a note that they need to come in and can then go home.

*Yes, Nancy literally used her feet to put the car in park. Not really sure how this stops the car since she can't reach the brakes though...

*Nancy uses temporary wash out dye to dye her hair black. Just like with Jessica Wakefield, I'm sure it washes out after just one shower.

*In case you wanted to know, Bess is 5'4” and George is 5'7”. I'm about a half an inch taller than George but nowhere near as athletic as her.

*The cover to this one makes it look like it takes place on a skip trip or something, but nope, it's just River Heights during spring break.

*I don't know what's up with these older books, but this is like the fourth one I had where both the back and front cover literally separated from the book while I was reading. I've never had that problem with SVH books.