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Nancy's search for ninety-nine steps leads her to Paris and an exciting adventure in blackmail and alchemy.Tags
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Member Reviews
Story was a bit weak, but if you love ND mysteries in other countries you might like this one. Nancy and her gal pals travel with Carson Drew to scenic France to uncover the mystery of the 99 steps and find out why wealthy financier Monseiur LeBlanc is giving away his fortune to a complete stranger who dresses in Arabian garb.
Nancy Drew travels to France to solve this mystery involving a few sparse clues- we know that there's a businessman who's selling everything in a panic, a strange dream, alchemy, and a man who calls himself Mr. Nine. Naturally all these things are connected together, and Nancy figures out how one of these things leads to another one, and just what the mysterious dream is about. This book stands out from many others in the series in that the bad guy's wife is a good person who's just a little clueless (usually all the bad people are just lumped together).
I absolutely loved Nancy Drew growing up. This was a series I latched on to for dear life and never let go. Anytime my mom and I would go to antique stores, we'd peruse the Nancy Drews and add them to the collection (oftentimes my mom had to make deals with me on how many I could buy). So, while I don't remember the exact details of each and every one, the entire series was amazing and really fed my love for reading (especially novels full of suspense and mystery). Thank you, Carolyn Keene, for giving us an intelligent female character to fall in love with in Nancy Drew!
Another wonderful Nancy Drew book, this one has Nancy trying to track down the source of a woman's reaccuring nightmare in which she is standing blindfolded at the top of a mysterious flight of steps.
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The Stratemeyer Syndicate
605 works; 1 member
Author Information
925+ Works 201,405 Members
Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym that Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig used to write Nancy Drew books. The idea of Nancy Drew came from Edward Stratemeyer in 1929. He also had other series, that included the Hardy Boys, but he died in 1930 before the Nancy Drew series became famous. His daughters, Harriet and Edna, inherited his company and show more maintained Nancy Drew having Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Carolyn Keene, as the principal ghostwriter. During the Depression, they asked Benson to take a pay cut and she refused, which is when Karig wrote the books. Karig's Nancy Drew books were Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, and Password to Larkspur Lane. He was fired from writing more books because of his refusal to honor the request that he keep his work as Carolyn Keene a secret. He allowed the Library of Congress to learn of his authorship and his name appeared on their catalog cards. Afterwards, they rehired Benson and she wrote until her last Nancy Drew book (#30) was written in 1953, Clue of the Velvet Mask. Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer also contributed to the Nancy Drew series. Edna wrote plot outlines for several of the early books and Harriet, who claimed to be the sole author, had actually outlined and edited nearly all the volumes written by Benson. The Stratemeyer Syndicate had begun to make its writers sign contracts that prohibited them from claiming any credit for their works, but Benson never denied her writing books for the series. After Harriet's death in 1982, Simon and Schuster became the owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate properties and in 1994, publicly recognized Benson for her work at a Nancy Drew conference at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. Now, Nancy Drew has several ghostwriters and artists that have contributed to her more recent incarnations. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
B. Wahlströms ungdomsböcker (1743-44)
B. Wahlströms flickböcker (1743-44)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock / The Bungalow Mystery / The Mystery of the 99 Steps by Carolyn Keene
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Mystery of the 99 Steps
- Original publication date
- 1966
- People/Characters
- Nancy Drew; Bess Marvin; George Fayne; Marie Bardot; Monique Bardot; Mrs. Josette Blair
- Important places
- France
- First words
- "How exciting, Nancy!"
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 1,672
- Popularity
- 13,291
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- 6 — Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Norwegian (Bokmål), Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 16