The Clue in the Jewel Box (Nancy Drew, Book 20)

Look, I don't read these for believable plots, I read them as comforts from my childhood that are now hilarious with all their contrivances. This one was published in 1943 and the contrivances are truly mind-boggling.

Nancy meets an "aristocratic" (because you can totally tell bloodlines by looking)

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elderly woman having a fainting spell at a department store and she and her chums help the woman get home. Turns out she's the dowager empress "queen mother" of Russia an unnamed country that had a bloody revolution a few decades ago but is currently an ally of the U.S. in a war that is never mentioned so it would be awkward to bring up that tawdry past by naming the country even though all the details are super obvious. Soon (by which I mean, the next day), of course, Nancy is a trusted friend of the former royal and becomes involved in the search for her missing grandson who was smuggled to the U.S. as a small child. (So Anastasia but for some reason with the boy child instead of one of the girls.) River Heights is apparently a popular place for royalist Russians émigrés from the unnamed country, which you would think might make it easier to find the longlost grandson, but of course that wouldn't make for a twisty enough plot.

Also Nancy has ditched her roadster with no explanation and is walking and biking everywhere (with the occasional taxi ride) because it would have offended her readers who were on gas rations (because war, but shh!) to have her driving everywhere. The best part, though, was when her old friend and occasional series guest, Helen Corning, pops in and explains that she's been in Paris with her dad(!), having a grand old time(?!), and they had an "exciting trip" coming back from Europe(!!!). Personally I would think someone having a grand old time in Paris in 1943 during a war that is never mentioned but is influential enough to get Nancy to ditch her iconic roadster would be more offensive than said roadster, but I guess that's just me.

Anyway, (spoilers, lol) our girl sleuth finds the missing prince, catches all the bad guys, models a winning design in a fashion show, and manages to get her dad the perfect birthday present, of course.

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Nancy Drew has two mysteries on her hands- who has been doing all the local pickpocketing and is the man she has discovered really the grandson of a queen? Once again Nancy's luck and careful observation lead her to discover the answer to both mysteries and how the two are related.

nancy uses the clue in an old jewel box belonging to a former queen to locate her lost grandson