The Bike Race Mystery is the 59th book in the Nancy Drew Notebooks series. It was published in April, 2004 for Aladdin Paperbacks. The cover tagline says “A race against time!”
Back of the Book Summary:
George’s bike is missing–will she miss the race?
Nancy, Bess, and George are really excited about the bike race River Heights is holding during the girls’ spring break. The winner gets lots of cool prizes!
George is the most excited because she thinks her bike is the fastest. But a few days before the race, her bike disappears! Nancy and Bess promise to help George find it, but this bikenapper leaves almost no tracks to follow. Nancy must pedal her way through this mystery–and fast–or else George will be sitting on the sidelines!
Inside Teaser:
How will George compete in the bike race without a bike?
“Bess, where are you?” George demanded.
Bess stopped in her tracks. “What’s the matter? I was talking to Brenda out front. She said she had to interview me about the race. All she did was ask me a bunch of dumb questions, though.”
“Where’s George’s bike?” Nancy asked her.
Bess frowned. “What do you mean? It’s right here–” She gasped. “Oh, no! Where did it go?”
“I was right!” George said miserably. “Someone stole it!”
Review:
Nancy, Bess, and George are on spring break from school and ride their bikes to the bike store. They are going to sign up for the bike race that will take place at the end of the week, where the prize is a new mountain bike. When George’s bike goes missing, the girls start investigating. Brenda Carlton joins the girls in the investigation as she is loving the story – it benefits her newspaper article that she is writing. As rude and annoying as Brenda is, she does help the girls in a positive way a couple of times.
In one instance Nancy fibs to get a reaction out of a suspect. She patiently works on solving the case under the pressure of time and with the added annoyance of Brenda tagging along in her investigations. The clues and steps in the investigation are primarily on questioning suspects, but the key clue involves finding an item that is cross-checked on the internet from Nancy’s home computer.
Overall, I found this story pretty standard and could have used more biking elements or refences to round out the theme of the book. It does have a positive ending with an interesting culprit and motive.
Nancy Drew Canon Observations:
Nancy, Bess, and George are eight years old. They are third-graders at Carl Sandberg Elementary school.
Nancy keeps a blue notebook for her sleuthing which was given to her by her father. In this book, Nancy uses a purple pen with a cap, and it has bit of glitter in it.
George and Bess are cousins.
The story mentions Hannah Gruen, the Drew housekeeper. In the story she rides a silver ten speed bike.
Carson Drew is mentioned in this story. He has blue eyes like Nancy’s, and usually wears suits for his work days as a lawyer, but at a dinner scene, he wears jeans and a blue button-up shirt.
Nancy says her favorite color is blue. She is described as having long blonde hair.
Halfway between Nancy’s house and downtown River Heights is Bike Mania, a bike store.
Brenda Carlton is in this story. She is a fellow student in Nancy’s class. Brenda’s father is mentioned as being the publisher of the River Heights newspaper. It is written that she is usually snooty and mean to everyone. She invites herself to help with the mystery so that she can write her piece for her father’s newspaper. She also invites herself to Nancy’s sleepover with Bess and George, bringing her teddy bear named Esmerelda.
Extra Notes:
Printed by Aladdin Paperbacks, which sport the red band on the cover and part of the spine.
Cover photography by Michael Frost. Cover photo-illustration by Joanie Schwarz. Illustrated by Paul Casale.
Length: 76 pages in the main story (more with the title page, series lists, and ads).
