"High School Musical Mystery"

Nancy Drew meets the Dana Girls. George and Bess and the Dana Girls' biggest fans Teri and Gale concoct a musical mystery contest to stymie the sleuths and determine once and for all who is the world's greatest girl detective. Little do the teens realize that a scoundrel has taken advantage of the game to commit a genuine crime. Will Nancy and the Dana Girls recognize the fingerprints of felony?

Petrucha and Kinney have a rather tall order to fill for this volume of Nancy Drew. First, they must introduce ostensibly new characters to the audience. Second, they must update those characters since they're not really new. Third, they must maintain the already established characterization of Nancy, Bess, and George. Fourth, they must entertain with a detective story or mystery. Fifth, they still must follow the basic tenets of writing to create a compelling tale. I would argue that they do four out five superbly, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Mildred Wirt Benson, the writer who under the housename of Carolyn Keene, gave Nancy, Bess, and George much of their spark also put her spin on the Dana Girls. The Danas were a pair of sleuthing sisters that were a little older than Nancy, but no less trouble to those who would swindle or steal. I've read two of the Dana Girls' mysteries when I was younger. So, I would wager like most of the audience, I'm not overly familiar with the ladies' methods. That's somewhat immaterial though because Petrucha and Kinney are introducing the Dana Girls to a new generation of readers, and they do so admirably.

I look upon this volume of Nancy Drew as a superhero team-up and if you judge it in these terms then you must consider it a much stronger and successful example of the motif. Most superhero team-ups have little reason to occur. Not so in this volume of Nancy Drew.

Nancy is giving one of the suspects from the previous mystery a lift back to where he works, which happens to be the Dana Girls' base of operations Starhurst School for Girls. Unlike some team-ups/slugfests, Nancy and the Dana Girls are aware of each other's experience in detection. This is a refreshing shift from the usual rigmarole where the writer stages a needless battle borne from misunderstanding in worlds that appear to lack newspapers or the internet.

From the outset, Nancy and the Dana Girls hit it off, but that changes. The Dana Girls' habits generate friction that steadily builds to a breaking point. Now, don't expect Nancy to start hitting the Dana Girls like some super-dude determined to keep competition out of "his city." Nancy deals with the Dana Girls' nerve-wracking habits in a mature, honest fashion, and she still respects them as detectives.

Petrucha and Kinney are wise not to have the trio simply stumble upon a mystery. That would seem completely contrived. Almost as bad as Jessica Fletcher discovering dead bodies wherever she goes. Instead, the writers embroil the trio in friendly competition similar to a mystery weekend. The difference is that one of the spectators is playing a different kind of game.

The criminal in Nancy Drew would have committed the theft in a different way had Nancy not arrived at Starhurst and would have likely been caught solely by the Dana Girls through a different means. Nancy's arrival and George's and Bess' fandom rivalry with Teri and Gale catalyzes a new scheme. The plan also explains why on earth any thief with half a brain would attempt to snatch a target in the presence of three formidable detectives. The criminal believes the distraction will be enough to keep the sleuths occupied. The burglar bungles when trying too hard to deter Nancy and the Dana Girls, but this is not a flaw in the writing. Rather, it's a display of the criminal's arrogance. The criminal believes that he will get away with the goods. He believes every action he takes will abet his escape. All well and good, but the identity of the culprit is too easy to deduce, and here lies the only fault in the story.

Because of the additions to the cast, Sho Murase now has a more complex job to do. Not only must Murase add suspects and red herrings to the typical Nancy Drew mix, not only must she do justice to Nancy, the cousins and Deirdre Shannon, Nancy's visiting nemesis, she also must make the Dana Girls distinctive enough to identify them as guest-stars, not just extras. The Dana Girls must be striking. Otherwise, the reader will ignore them.

Manga doesn't really lend to uniqueness in my opinion. If anything the characters in manga frequently look the same. Generally speaking, I loathe manga and recognize it less as an artform and more of a process of copying. Sho Murase is one of the few manga artists that makes me reconsider my opinions.

The Dana Girls are indeed distinct and eye-catching. I would follow their adventures as much as I would follow those of Nancy. Their enemies also look special. Lettie and Ina appear Disneyesque in design; a bitchy Cruella DeVille type with a short henchwench depicted as having poor posture to mimic the stance of a hunchback. Likewise, the Dana Girls' cheerleading section look cute and fit the visual mold of sidekick. It occurs to me that this is why I have never taken Nightwing or Arsenal seriously except when they were Robin and Speedy. They both will always look like sidekicks no matter what metrosexual outfit they wear. On the other hand, Kyle Rayner was designed to be the Green Lantern, not Green Lantern Jr.

There is one moment in particular that perfectly captures the thing that makes Nancy and the Dana Girls different from everybody else. When the trio simultaneously arrive at the same conclusion, you can see from their expressions that they are saying to themselves, "How could I have been so stupid?" The sidekick doesn't have to worry about the weight of being correct. Her function is merely to help the hero. The hero is self-critical. The hero believes she should see everything, even when that's not possible.

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