By the Light of the Study Lamp

By the Light of the Study Lamp by Carolyn Keene (1934) The first Dana Girls Mystery. The ghostwriter was Leslie McFarlane, who wrote the original Hardy Boys a few years before this, and you can recognize some of his influence, as with some light touches like the comic relief, somewhat offensive portrayal of their housekeeper, named “Cora Apple.” But I read somewhere that he wasn’t too into it, so he only wrote the first four Dana Girls, then quit—I read his autobiography, but I forgot if he talked about this. I read the 2nd book in this series, a while back, and was a little disappointed at the lack of definition of the two Dana sisters—so with this one, I made a point to try to focus on their personalities a little more—and it occurred to me, they’re kind of a Hardy Boys version of Nancy Drew or vice versa. Louise is the older, dark-haired girl, and Jean, who is a year younger, is fair-haired and more impetuous. As I recall, the story was pretty wacky in that book, and this one is even more fun—a good mystery, it moves fast, and at times it’s totally over-the-top. Some people find excessive, unbelievable coincidences to be evidence of bad writing, but here it’s taken to such an extreme you’d have to consider it an art form! Sure, there’s a bit of predictability, but even when you do see some of it coming, it’s full of surprises. There’s danger, some strangeness, nostalgia, and even some hijinks at the girls’ school—scheming, and revenge—with the Danas getting the upper hand. There’s even a brief subplot about aggressive and unethical medical billing, believe it or else. Boy, the more things stay the same, the more they stay the same.

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