We’re now onto the seventh game of the series, and HER has started to leave behind relatively straightforward book-to-game adaptations for the murkier waters of taking elements from a few different books and merging them together. In this case, Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake was apparently based on both a full-length mainline book, 2002’s Mystery by Moonlight, and an older short story, The Ghost Dogs of Whispering Oaks. The short story is part of a collection called Nancy Drew Ghost Stories; at six stories, it’s about as long as a regular Nancy Drew book, so I figured I’d just get them all out of the way at once.
Ghost Stories was published in 1983, which is weird because there’s a kind of an early, pre-women-regularly-wearing-pants Nancy vibe about a lot of these, with a lot of talk of “special friends” instead of boyfriends and pitying unmarried women and using the word “queer” to mean “slightly odd.” I wouldn’t be totally surprised if these stories had been in like, a vault from the 1950s and they got pulled out and lightly edited because the Stratemeyer-Adams family wanted a new yacht or something.
Mystery #1: The Campus Ghost
Nancy is at home, minding her own business when Bess and George bust in, saying they’ve just seen the ghost that haunts nearby Clermont College. One of the professors, Sophie Hanks, died about five years ago (she crashed her car, fell into a creek, and then got swept out to sea for extra pathos), and she’s been rumored to haunt the campus ever since. Everyone thinks it’s her because A) mysterious flickering lights are sometimes seen from her old lab (because I’m sure the university hasn’t let anyone else use that lab in 5 years) and B) the ghost wears a “gray, hooded cape” just like Sophie did when she was alive. Who the hell wears a cape to work?
Nancy drives over to the college and is shook when she also sees a light coming from the lab. She tells Carson about it the next morning and he says, “What an odd coincidence! I’ve just been asked to take on a case involving Professor Hanks.” Wow, it’s almost like we have to make sure we can contrive the ending to this story in 30 pages. Anyway, prior to her death, Sophie was working on synthesizing some rare chemical that was just invented for this book. A drug company wants to use the chemical, but Sophie patented the process to make it, and she never left a will (and hasn’t even been declared dead yet since they never found a body) so the legality of it is all thorny. I can’t imagine hiring Carson Drew is going to help, but whatever. On top of that, the catalyst to make the process work was mysteriously omitted from Sophie’s notes.
Nancy offers to help and naturally Carson’s like, “Of course, I don’t have a hope of doing my job without the help of my 18-year-old daughter!” I bet that drug company is regretting their choices right now.
Nancy pokes around the college and finds out that Sophie was disfigured and had a crooked nose, so she didn’t have many friends since being ugly made her bitter and unpleasant. Wow, I love seeing propaganda from the ’20s in 1983, don’t you?
Sophie’s only associates were Alice Durand, Sophie’s niece from Texas; Abel Martin, another faculty member; and Vanessa Lee, a pen pal Sophie had. Prof. Martin has most of Sophie’s personal effects, including letters from Vanessa Lee. He says Vanessa seems pretty and and well-traveled and popular, “with lots of suitors”, based on her writing. He — and everyone else at the college — has never actually met her. He’s confused over her friendship with Sophie, because he can’t grasp that Vanessa might not be basing Sophie’s worth on whether or not she’s attractive. Not in so many words.
Alice Durand shows up and Nancy immediately hates her because of her “whiny voice”. Don’t worry, though; Alice is shallow and only cares about money, so Nancy was right to judge her based solely on the way she talks.
Martin finds an anonymous note addressed to him, claiming that the writer saw Martin hanging with the “reddish-haired girl” (God forbid we inaccurately describe Nancy’s hair color for the sake of brevity), and the writer has ESP and can tell the aura of the spirit world is around her. Nancy’s like, “Spooky!” but Martin brushes it off, saying that it’s probably from someone in the parapsychology department. I was about to mock this but apparently this is an actual thing. Man, I went to college and I feel like it was overall worthwhile, but sometimes I look at it and I’m just like, “Academia is a joke.”
Nancy meets Vanessa Lee, whom she notes is pretty and around Sophie’s age, with a Texas accent. Weirdly, Vanessa doesn’t know much about Sophie, and claims that she lost her memory a while back. Vanessa is also a scientist and works in a lab in another town; the lab also says they don’t know much about her background, either. They just hired her because some other science guy gave her a recommendation.
Me, after reading that paragraph: Huh, I think I know what the mystery is.
Prof. Martin invites Nancy to an “old shack”, where Sophie apparently used to hang out and write poetry. Nancy finds nothing weird about this rando dude inviting her to a shack in the middle of the woods and obligingly goes. At the shack, they see a “spectre” (what is that spelling? Are we suddenly British?) of a woman wearing a cape. She turns around and Nancy’s like, “Omg, she’s ugly! It must be Sophie!” She and Martin give chase, but Martin trips and takes Nancy down with him. Men are useless.
Inside the cabin, Nancy finds a typewritten (hee) will. She takes it back to Carson who says he’ll need some time to make sure the will is valid, and Nancy replies, “Yes. I think it should be examined carefully, so that we can be sure.” Ghostwriter, this is a short story. You don’t need to pad the word count like this.
Nancy tasks Bess and George with following Alice the next day, with some assistance from the “house detective” at Alice’s hotel. I was also going to mock the concept of a hotel just having a detective on call, until I googled and found that it’s basically just an old-timey way of saying security guard. Seriously, are Goodreads and Amazon lying about this book being published in 1983? Nothing about the social attitudes or vocabulary reads like the late 20th century.
Nancy meets with one Dr. Craig, the guy who recommended Vanessa for her lab job. He says he met Vanessa when he rescued her from a sinking yacht in the middle of the sea, as you do. Upon rescue, she kept mumbling “Brahma cattle” which no one really understood, but they were just like, “Oh well, she’s probably just obsessed with cattle ranching because she’s from Texas.” Nancy reports this back to Carson, who also notes that Dr. Craig is a famous plastic surgeon. (Have you figured out the mystery yet?)
Bess comes over to tell Nancy what she’s learned from tailing Alice all day, and the book refers to Bess as Nancy’s “plump, blond friend.” This is weird because Bess is described the exact same way on the very first page:
This story is 30 pages long, ghostwriter, I promise I haven’t already forgotten that Bess isn’t skinny. (Bonus moment: Bess wants to put crimebusting on hold so she can have a snack and Nancy says, “Okay, but only three hundred calories!” What the fuck?)
Nancy goes over to Prof. Martin’s house to confront him and Alice. She asks to use their typewriter and then is like, “Aha, this typewriter matches the typing on the will we found!” Then she also tells them a “chambermaid” found a cape and witch mask in Alice’s room. Then she sees a light in the science building (because Prof. Martin apparently only lives a block away from the college? God I wish that were my commute) and runs off. So now Martin and Alice know Nancy’s busted them and they have time to get away? Jesus, Nancy, get it together.
She finds Vanessa Lee in the science lab, who is of course really Sophie Hanks. Nancy explains that Sophie got swept downstream and into the bay and got mixed up in the yacht sinking (why not), but Dr. Craig rescued her and used his plastic surgery skills to treat her injuries, including her childhood disfigurement. Sophie is also originally from Texas, so she went back to using her normal accent when she lost her memory. Vanessa Lee was a hot, popular alter-ego Sophie had made up to escape the horrors of being plain and unmarried (every woman’s worst nightmare) and she slipped into the identity when she couldn’t remember who she really was. Sophie was sleepwalking into the science lab every night and working on her project. She finally recreated her experiment tonight, causing a small explosion that knocked her out of her alter-ego. So now she remembers who she is and she’s going to become rich and famous because she figured out the catalyst to making the chemical reaction work (it’s bromate, hence her saying “Brahma cattle”, i.e. bromate catalyst).
Sophie thanks Nancy for helping her restore her memory (how? she was working on her experiment way before Nancy came into the picture, and it was nearly blowing herself up that knocked her memory back) and then the story ends. So while it’s implied Prof. Martin and Alice faked the will and were trying to finagle their way into Sophie’s science money, we never actually confirm it. But it’s okay because the most important thing is that Sophie’s conventionally attractive now, and really, does anything else matter?
Mystery #2: The Ghost Dogs of Whispering Oaks
Alright, this is the one we actually came for. The Clue Crew is with their friend, one Sally McDonald, who’s taking them to her family farm. (Yes, that makes it McDonalds’ farm. These stories aren’t subtle.) She wants to move there with her husband, but first, she needs to check if the farm is still haunted by ghost dogs. As you do.
The second they arrive, a big tree falls over and nearly hits them. Nancy inspects the tree and gasps that someone cut the trunk. “Not someone!” Sally shrieked. “The ghosts!” So Sally not only believes in ghost dogs, she believes they can operate chainsaws? No offense, but if I were a cartoonish villain who wanted fake some hauntings to steal treasure buried on someone’s property, this woman would totally be my target because she’s kind of dumb.
The Clue Crew makes it to the house and Bess is like, “Can’t wait to see my favorite room, the kitchen!” Sigh. Sally tells them that the farm was first owned by her great-grandparents, Ezra and Pollyanna McDonald. Heh. There is no way the ghostwriter for this story was taking any of this seriously. Weirdly, though, Sally keeps referring to them as “the McDonalds” as though she’s not related to them. Well, anyway, the McDonalds raised black Labrador dogs and had a litter of four unusually large males one year. After the McDonalds died, the dogs died too, allegedly of broken hearts (okay, Padme Amidala). The McDonalds’ will stipulated that the dogs be buried with them, but the will mysteriously went missing after their deaths, so the dogs were just buried in some rando place and that’s why they haunt the house. Apparently. Also missing are the four solid gold statues that the McDonalds made of their dogs, because you know, that’s normal. The Clue Crew notes that the statues would be very valuable.
They hang out for a bit and wax on about how much they love Shakespeare, the way teenage girls so frequently do. Sally says she would’ve loved to have lived during the 1500s because I guess she doesn’t care that much about being able to vote or have a legal identity separate from her husband’s.
Then the ghost dogs attack and nearly break into the house, and I’ll admit the writing is actually pretty scary and effective here. The dogs mysteriously back off before they get inside, though. Nancy is suspicious.
She goes out to investigate early the next morning and finds the dogs’ gravestones. Their names are “Kosob, Shrose, Dragens, and Nescain”, which Nancy thinks are pretty weird names for dogs. Then she overhears two men having a conversation about the Clue Crew — nothing incriminating, but Nancy is creeped out that they’re talking about them at all. The two men don’t seem to notice her, but when she passes by the farm’s ice house, someone pushes her inside.
The Clue Crew manages to rescue her; afterwards, Nancy tells them about the two guys. Sally IDs them as the Sabuch brothers (“Red” and “Jimmy”). Their father was the one who buried the ghost dogs; despite fucking up the burial instructions and causing a haunting that drove the family away from the property forever, Sally’s parents are apparently cool with the Sabuchs and trust them to watch over the farm.
Nancy also tells them about the weird dog names, and Bess says, “They sound like Indian deities, not names for pet dogs.” That’s true if you’ve never heard the name of an Indian deity in your life, I guess. They inspect the dogs’ graves for more clues and note that they’re inscribed with the phrase “Whosoever loves us shall hold us forever through the pages of time.” George also notices that there are a bunch of holes dug around the graves and Nancy remarks there were a bunch of holes dug under the ice house, too. Could someone be looking for something? Like the gold dog statues?
Nancy muses that the phrase “pages of time” must be a clue, then she goes to the house and sits in the library and is like, “I wonder what it means.” She also notes the library has shelves labeled Horses, Gardens, and Canines, then she’s like, “Welp, better leave and figure out the mystery of the dogs’ names, otherwise we’ll never find out where the statues are!”
Sally’s husband, Jeff, is meant to come up to the cabin, but he’s been mysteriously delayed. The Clue Crew were relying on having extra manpower, but they go ahead with staking out the next haunting anyway, assuming that Jeff will arrive soon and save them if anything really bad happens.
Nancy and George catch the “dogs” in the act, but then they’re knocked out and dragged to a shed. Meanwhile, Jeff finally arrives at the cabin and reveals that he arrived way earlier, but Red and Jimmy didn’t give the girls the message. Plus, Red said he’d move the fallen tree, but it was still blocking the path to the house. The conclusion was obvious, the book says, and yet everyone derps that they have no idea why Red and Jimmy would lie to them. Jeff says he intends to find out, then he’s going to call the police. Uh, maybe you should do those in the opposite order? Jeff? Jeff???
Nancy and George wake up bound and gagged inside the Sabuchs’ closet, for of course it is they who are the culprits. Nancy remembers that, before getting knocked out, she saw that Red and Jimmy are faking the hauntings by dressing in black and sticking yellow lights on their gloves to look like spooky glowing eyes. They also have rakes attached to the gloves to scrape at the sides of the house, which seems like an excellent way to accidentally stab yourself, but whatever.
Outside the closet, Red and Jimmy loudly explain to each other that their father was the one who started the rumors of the hauntings, because he wanted to search the property for the gold dog statues. Red and Jimmy are carrying on his mission, so now they’ve gotta kill Nancy because she knows too much. Red tells Jimmy to set the shed on fire, but Jimmy’s like, “Wow, I didn’t have doubts when we were attacking a woman’s house for years, but now that you’re asking me to hurt Nancy Drew, I’m thinking we might be the bad guys?” He lets Nancy and George escape, then stops Red from getting away.
After the police have arrested the Sabuchs, Nancy reveals that the gold statues are hidden in the library. The dogs’ names, Kosob, Nescain, Dragens, and Shrose, were anagrams for Books, Canines, Gardens, and Horses, respectively. Somehow, no one figured that out in the like 20 years since the McDonalds died. You’ll recall there are shelves with those labels in the library; there’s a door behind them leading to an alcove that has the statues.
The gold is discovered and the story ends there. And I guess we never discover the dogs’ real names, unless the McDonalds were playing some kind of bizarre long con wherein they knew as soon as the dogs were born that they needed to give them that were anagrams, because they were going to grow so attached to the dogs that they’d create gold statues of them, which their unscrupulous neighbors were going to steal. I mean, I guess it makes as much sense as everything else in this book.
Mystery #3: Blackbeard’s Skull
The Clue Crew is on vacation on “Pelican Island”, off the coast of North Carolina, which was allegedly the site of much smuggling during the Golden Age of Piracy. The island’s ranger station has a display of old doubloons that Nancy wakes up at crack-thirty to view because she’s a nerd. But the doubloons are missing! And a skull has been left behind in their place! SpOoOoOkY!
Nancy’s guide, Ranger Lane, gasps that the doubloons’ disappearance is because of the curse of Blackbeard. Apparently Blackbeard has a curse for whoever steals his loot, and the curse is to just…steal it back? And leave his skull behind? Do ghosts really love manhandling their own skeletons? I don’t know. They’re also never going to bring up this alleged curse again, despite it being the title, so it doesn’t matter anyway. Ranger Lane says that the only other person who’s been in the station is his assistant, Arthur Huber, but Ranger Lane is sure that Huber didn’t do it. When Nancy meets him, however, Huber is super rude to her, and we all know that disrespecting Nancy Drew is the mark of a criminal.
Nancy leaves the station and walks right into some old British guy named Colin Hudson. He’s visiting because he served nearby in WWII, training the US navy in fighting German submarines that were attacking supply ships. This is a real thing that happened! I didn’t know this at all. This story is kind of lame in itself, but the naval history would’ve been a cool background for a game.
Nancy invites Colin to the Clue Crew’s cottage so she can cook him dinner and he can regale her with more tales about how Britannia rules the waves. They agree to meet that night. Nancy then goes back to the ranger station and notes that the skull has fillings in its teeth. Maybe it’s not Blackbeard’s real skull after all!
Mr. Hudson mysteriously doesn’t show up to dinner, so Nancy goes looking for him. She doesn’t find a trace of him or anyone who recognizes his name — but then she finds a plaque listing British soldiers who died in WWII, and Colin Hudson’s name is among them. The narration is clearly trying to hint that he’s a ghost (Colin Hudson is so uncommon a name for an English man, after all), but Nancy just shrugs and moves on.
The Coast Guard suggests that Nancy ask one “Gerald Curran”, some guy who owns a big catamaran and knows the coast well. When she knocks on his door, Curran yells at her, but then apologizes: “I’m sorry, I thought you were some nosy kid or tourist.” Hee! Why not both?
As soon as he finds out that she’s looking for Mr. Hudson, though, Curran goes back to being rude and blows Nancy off. The next day, she follows him to a shipwreck and goes scuba diving. A headless skeleton (~SpOoOkY!~) falls on her while she’s swimming, and she assumes Curran purposely dropped it on her to scare her off. She and George then decide to ask around town about Mr. Hudson’s whereabouts. George also wants to get a look at Curran: “I’d like to punch him in the nose. Dropping skeletons on people! The nerve of him!” Right? That’s just bad manners.
While they’re out and about, Curran comes to the cottage and tries to interrogate Bess about Nancy’s whereabouts. Then a Park Service truck tries to hit Nancy. Undeterred, Nancy’s like, “Nothing bad ever happens to Nancy Drew!” and decides to inspect the ranger station alone that night.
At the ranger station, she gets knocked out (of course she does) and wakes up on Curran’s catamaran. Colin Hudson is there, bound and gagged, and Nancy is all indignant that Curran probably hasn’t been feeding him. I mean, that sucks and all, but I feel like you have bigger problems right now, Nancy. She then overhears Curran talking with the park service guy, Arthur Huber, revealing that they’re accomplices.
Bess and George realize that Nancy has been gone for a while, so they alert the Coast Guard, then Nancy manages to maneuver her way to the boat horn and beep out SOS. Everyone is rescued and the Coast Guard guy is all impressed by how flexible Nancy is. Ick. Nancy tosses her hair and says that she knows gymnastics, you know, in addition to karate and skiing and trivia about the postal service.
Curran and Huber reveal their plot: Huber helped Curran steal the gold from the ranger station, and they dumped it underwater with the intent of retrieving it before they ran off. Colin found the gold one day while diving, so Curran knocked him out and kidnapped him. Then of course Nancy came on the scene and solved everything with her girl detective skills. Curran tried to stop her by dropping the headless skeleton on her, but that just made Nancy realize that the skull left in the ranger station must have come from that skeleton. Intriguingly, there’s no mention of the Park Service car nearly running her over, although I’m guessing that was Huber’s doing.
Huber and Curran are arrested, and Curran scowls that he was “caught by a girl.” I’m glad that’s what we’re taking away from this.
Everyone gathers on the street, where some old busker sings a song about their little misadventure, called “the ballad of Nancy Drew.” Jeez. This story already wasn’t very impressive in prose; I don’t think reliving it via filk will make it any better.
Then the girls realize that Mr. Hudson has disappeared, and Nancy tells them about seeing his name in the British cemetery. They’re all, “Omg, maybe he was a ghost!” Kind of weird that they’re only considering this now, after they’ve seen him get kidnapped and tied up, but whatever.
Up next: Ghosts wearing moisture-wicking leggings, secret orchid research, and criminal gangs dressing up as frogs.
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