The Nancy Drew Files #50: Deep Secrets (1990)

Let's set this up. In previous books in this trilogy, Nancy, Bess, and George went to stay with Eloise Drew in the Hamptons. Nancy met a guy, Gary, and helped prove his innocence and keep his job as a test pilot before falling in love with George. Nancy met a Soviet dancer named Sasha that instantly decided he was in love with her. Despite having Ned, who is conveniently on his way for a visit, Nancy thinks she might be in love with the dancer because she keeps thinking about him. It's called a crush, dodo.

Deep Secrets opens with a fancy party thrown by Nancy's friend Emily. Conversation turns to Roland Lyons, a businessman who bought up a ton of land and now wants to trade it back to the city for beachfront land where he can build condos. Emily and her new “friend” Jeff think Lyons is horrible because he puts money above all else. Keith, Emily's ex-boyfriend, interrupts, they share words, and things go badly.

Later, Keith and Jeff get into it again, which ends with Keith punching Jeff. Emily explains that he's a horrible guy who treated her life a fancy toy and that he's a big supporter of Lyon. Sasha shows up, sides with Lyon, and Emily gets annoyed enough that she leaves. He then convinces Nancy to take a walk on the beach with him where they kiss for the first time.

The next morning they get the bad news that Emily went missing. She took out her boat the night before and never came home. The marina manager explains to Nancy that she saw Emily come back around 9:30 but when she got there at seven the next morning, the boat was gone. Emily's dad says he thought he heard her come home the night before but never saw her.

After heading back to Eloise's home and finding her with some new friend named Seth, they start calling around to see if they can find anything. Nancy shocks her friends when she announces that it's possible someone kidnapped Emily the night before. Emily's dad finds the theory as disturbing as her friends do. Basically, no one believes it.

That all changes when Nancy and Sasha find Emily passed out on her boat while out on a sail. When she comes to, Emily tells them someone kidnapped her, took her boat somewhere, and left her locked down below with enough food for a week. The guy came back, partially unlocked her, and left again. She got out and was sailing back when the boom hit her and knocked her out. Since she wasn't there for the city council vote, Lyons got everything he wanted.

Though Emily assumes Keith was behind it all, they get a call that he was in a serious car accident and is now in serious condition in intensive care. They decide to focus on other suspects. Complicating matters is the fact that Ned just showed up. Though I have a soft spot for good old Ned, he really is the best boyfriend ever. He lets Nancy run off to investigate and never complains, while Sasha calls and bitches about her spending too much time with Ned. Sasha also lets her know that he has a chance to stay in America for a year but will only stay if that's what she wants. Not any pressure at all.

Ned makes reservations for dinner but agrees to go with her to see Lyons in person. Lyons finds the idea of being a suspect ridiculous, just as ridiculous as a teen detective. I kind of love him because he makes comments about how he got rid of all his blood stained shoes before she got there. He has a rock solid alibi and a fear of boats, so he clearly didn't kidnap Emily. Before they leave though, he tosses in a comment about her Russian boyfriend.

Since they missed their reservation, they decide to meet up with their friends for pizza. Ned brings up Sasha, and Nancy being Nancy can't tell him the truth. She just tells him that nothing ever happened, but it's clear by his strong jawline that he knows the truth. It doesn't help that her friends and their boyfriends keep bringing up Sasha and telling stories about him.

Just when things couldn't get anymore awkward, Nancy sees her aunt making out with Seth on the beach. After a short chat, she trips him up when he tells her he went to the movies on the night of the kidnapping and names a movie that wasn't playing that night. They also find where the boat was that night and find a shoe print left behind.

In other news Sasha gets Nancy alone and embraces her. Right as he leans in for a kiss, Ned shows up, sees them, and runs off. Nancy chases him and finds him on the beach by himself. She finally tells him about their flirtation and how she has feelings for another guy. Instead of just dumping her, Ned tells her that he loves her more than anything, that they have something special, and that he'll do whatever it takes to prove that to her.

They wind up water skiing, to which Ned invites Sasha along. Sasha falls off his skis, but Ned actually goes back, finds him, and drags him to safety. After that, Ned gets cold with Nancy but still agrees to help her search Seth's boat. She finds a photo of him with his wife, poor Eloise, and shoes that match the print she found. Seth catches them and comes clean. He was out of town to finalize his divorce and Eloise actually knew. He just didn't tell Nancy the truth because he didn't want his divorce spread around town.

In the hopes of finding the kidnapper, Nancy goes back to Keith. She finds out that he went missing on the night of the kidnapping and quit his job the next day. After breaking into his car, they find shoes that match the print. Before she can do much else though, she finds both Sasha and Ned flirting with two hot Russian chicks. Ned then asks to borrow her car to take them home, which I find hilarious.

Nancy somehow puts it together that Lyons was behind the whole thing. He thought Emily had dirt on him and got Keith to help. Lyons then emptied Keith's brake lines to cause the accident. Nancy finds out from a reporter friend that Lyons previously had a construction company that went out of business after he cut corners and buildings collapsed.

Sasha comes to see Nancy and tell her that he's leaving because he can't get the training that he needs in the States. He also realized that her heart belongs to Ned and tells her that he wishes she would look at him the way she looks at Ned. They agree to be friends, and she tells him all about the case. While on the way home, she detects the scent of chloroform and the world goes black. I should keep a running total of how often she gets knocked out.

Lyons reveals that she was right all along about him setting up Keith. He then kidnapped both Nancy and Emily, stole his neighbor's boat, and set the boat up to explode. After getting to the right spot, he hops on the dinghy, makes sure they know the radio doesn't work, and takes off. Nancy gets to the broken radio and manages to send an SOS, unties Emily and herself, they jump off the boat and find the Coast Guard waiting. The Coast Guard gets them to safety just as the other boat explodes.

At the station, the cops bring in Lyons. They checked Keith's car and find Lyons' fingerprints to prove he tampered with it. After a short recovery, they go to the big regatta and see Bess' new boyfriend's team win while racing a boat owned by Seth. Nancy learns that Ned left, heads back to her aunt's house, and finds a note asking her to meet him on the beach. Ned freaking apologizes for being upset that she cheated on him, and Nancy apologizes for being a bad person. They kiss as she thinks about how life is now absolutely perfect.

*This part of a trilogy, officially A Summer of Love trilogy. Sadly, I'm not sure if I have any of the other books. I kind of hate when series do this because I never know if I can follow along or if I should put books back until I complete the set.

*So, Nancy thinks she's in love with Sasha before they ever even kiss. Yup, sounds like a crush to me.

*Nancy wears a white silk skirt to the party, which seems so impractical to me! I love how all the late 80s/early 90s books had teenagers decked out in silk.

*Sasha calls and complains that her line was busy every time he called and how he almost gave up on asking her out to lunch. Instead of calling him a dick, Nancy just laughs, calls him outrageous, and invites him over.

*George, trying to be the voice of reason, points out that Sasha is going back to Russia in a few weeks, but Bess points out that Ned will go back to college, which isn't too different. Yup, college an hour away is just the same as dating someone in another country.

*When Sasha ends things, Nancy thinks about how she kept worrying about breaking his heart and now he's breaking her heart. Um, okay?

*As much as I agree that Ned and Nancy are perfect together, I really wish she would meet a guy and just flat out tell him to stop hitting on her because she has a boyfriend who she loves!