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When Mrs. Putney seeks Nancy Drew’s help in recovering her stolen jewelry, the search for the thieves takes the teen-age detective and her friends Bess and George to the colorful French Quarter of New Orleans. But the quest is hampered by the strange behavior of Mrs. Putney, and two young women who are being victimized by so-called spirits. How can Nancy fight these unseen perpetrators of a cruel hoax? And how can she help the gullible victims when the spirits warn them not to have anything to do with Nancy? ( )

Because I grew up with older brothers who had the Hardy Boys series, I missed out on most of the Nancy Drew series while growing up. I've read a few of them in my adult years, but the Nancy Drew books never quite measured up to the Hardy Boys books for me. I expect this is partially because I was older when I read them. In attempting to evaluate this book that I received through LibraryThing's member giveaway, I've tried to take into consideration the audience for which this book was intended.

In this installment Nancy is called upon to investigate a theft of jewels belonging to Mrs. Putney. It isn't long before several local girls begin acting very strangely. Mysterious symbols, ghosts, seances are all elements younger readers will enjoy. I'm personally not very comfortable with the occultic elements being present in this book.

The book just didn't ring true in a lot of ways. It is difficult to imagine a father encouraging a daughter to become involved in dangerous pursuits such as detecting. It is difficult to imagine that the police from multiple jurisdictions would encourage Nancy's participation in the case. It is difficult to imagine so many strangers being cooperative and supplying information. To persons used to flying in the 21st century, the description of larger planes acting like puddle jumpers (with stops where persons board and deplane on the way to what is certain to be the larger airport) is foreign as well as how quickly one is able to catch a flight and leave.

This book would probably be enjoyed by middle school girls. ( )

*may contain spoilers*

Not the greatest ND book ever, I was kind of disappointed in this one. From my point of view, there wasn't really much of an actual mystery, at least not the kind Nancy usually takes on. From very early on, we are aware of who the culprit is, and the rest of the book is mainly spent trying to catch that person and the other people involved. I've read a few other ND books that involved ghosts, but those actually focused on figuring out how the "ghost" was done, who was doing it, etc... things that were not discussed very much in this book. ( )