Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #84: The Joker's Revenge (1988)

Nancy, Bess, and George head to Chicago to work at Danner & Bishop, a huge department store. Carlin Fitzhugh contacted Carson to ask for their help because of some weird pranks happening around the store. He brings them into his office and shows them these ugly joker cards that the person keeps leaving behind. It started out as little things but then became more serious when someone arranged for a chandelier to fall down in the middle of the store. They all get to go undercover. Nancy will work in security, Bess heads to the shoe department, and poor George joins the janitorial crew.

Before they can even start, a heavy display cabinet almost falls on Nancy but Bess saves her. Someone sawed through two of the four support posts and then pushed it over. There is a joker card left behind. Nancy learns that there was a rash of shoplifters from a nearby private school, though no one thinks they're behind the pranks.

We meet Joe Dane, the head of security. He doesn't trust kids snooping around and isn't happy that Carlin hired someone without his permission. Anne, Carlin's daughter, is a recent college grad and preparing to take over the family business. Lindy works with Bess in the shoe department and dreams of being an actress, which means that she constantly leaves work early and pawns work off on other people. There's also Bennett Lloyd, who started with the company years ago, and Nick, a good looking guy who hangs around all the time.

The pranks continue. Someone causes a ceiling fixture to fall down and almost crash on Nancy and her friends. Someone then causes the escalator to speed up and almost send Nancy crashing into a marble pillar. She finds a matchbook and some other things nearby, which she keeps as evidence, though Nick keeps snooping around. A bunch of women shopping for and trying out new shoes start screaming because someone covered the shoes with itching powder.

Nancy and George see two young boys running away and laughing and give chase. They follow them to a fancy private school for boys down the street and corner them in the basement. The headmaster comes out to see what is going on and agrees to help them search. They find the two kids hiding in the basement and drag them back to the store.

It turns out that both boys were the shoplifters from before and that one is the son of Mr. Paley. He owns a chain of similar department stores and frequently tried to buy this store in the past. Paley comes when they call him and explodes on Nancy, getting right up in her face and coming seconds away from outright calling her a bitch. He then drags his son out and says they won't hear from him again.

Nancy goes to one of his stores to meet with him and he acts like a jackass once again. He tells her that his son had nothing to do with any of the pranks and that he can prove it and even tells her that his son had no reason to ever go to that store, despite the fact that he was literally caught stealing in the not too distant past. Paley then comes into the store and screams at Carlin before claiming that he'll own the store no matter what.

Remembering the matchbook she found, she realizes that it's for an aviation company and calls for help. All the woman can tell her is that someone from that shop ordered a helicopter. Nancy also finds out that someone special ordered the joker cards from a local company.

In the hopes of getting to the bottom of things, the girls hide out in the store overnight. The only problem is that the store has three doberman dogs that patrol at night. The dogs trap them in a storage area, but Nancy climbs up the shelves, gets inside the air vents, and escapes. The dogs track her to a new location but Joe Dane saves the day. He helps the girls out and agrees to work with Nancy. It turns out that he found the matchbook after hearing some people talking about stealing from the company. They got away before he could see them and left it behind, but then he lost it when he was checking out the escalator incident. They agree to meet early the next morning.

When next morning comes though, Joe doesn't show up. Nancy goes to his house, the front door is wide open, there's a mess inside, and someone left a joker card behind. Though she goes to the police, they say there's no proof of a crime. Lloyd starts acting shifty and talking about how he needs to take a vacation now, which is especially odd since someone blows up a cosmetics display case a few hours earlier. The same person then causes all the computers in the shop to break down at once.

Finding this very strange, Nancy goes to the aviation company and learns that someone arranged for a helicopter for that same day. She calls the airport and finds out that Lloyd does not have a ticket for a flight that night despite saying that he did. Trisha, the woman from the aviation company, calls with some exciting news: the same someone who booked the helicopter just called in for it to land on the roof of the shop.

All three gals rush to the roof of the store and find Lloyd, Lindy, and Nick all working together and stealing a bunch of random stuff. When Lloyd realizes they are there, he pulls a gun on them. He felt under appreciated by Carlin and thought Anne would take over the company instead of him, which just wasn't fair. Lindy jumped in on the stealing plan because she needed to move to New York because there apparently are NO acting opportunities in Chicago, and Nick got in on the plan just for the fun of it. They played all the pranks in the hopes of making the store go under.

Joe pops up and pulls a fire hose on them. It turns out that they had him locked up in the store but he got out and found them. The hose causes Lloyd to drop the gun, but as everyone tries to run away, he gets it back again, pushes George in the helicopter, and the bad guys take off. Nancy then jumps on the side of the helicopter, crawls underneath it, and manages to hang on while it flies all across the freaking city of Chicago.

The helicopter starts to touch down on a boat in the river and she's about to pass out, so she lets go. As soon as she hits the freezing water though, she wakes up manages to climb onto the boat. The Coast Guard shows up to save the day, but Lloyd won't let go of his gun, which he still has on George. One agent sees Nancy and distracts him so that she can karate shop the gun out of his hand. They all get arrested, and Carlin is so happy that he gives them all a shopping spree in his store.

*The women and the itching powder make no sense because both Bess and Nancy say the inside of the shoes are literally coated in white powder. Would you put your foot in a shoe coated in white powder?

*Bess says that she never wants to see another shoe again, and Nancy teases her about it when they get their shopping spree. It's easy for her to laugh though. Bess actually worked a full-time job! She went in every day, worked regular shifts, and all that with no mention of actually getting paid. Nancy pretty much just showed up and left whenever she wanted and spent the whole book snooping around.

*This store and the one from the BSC books kind of makes me wish big ass department stores still existed. We had one in Dayton that had the whole 6+ floors and all the different departments, but they tore it down when I was still pretty young.

*Nancy thinks that Paley's stores are bland and boring, and she wonders why anyone would ever shop there when Danner & Bishop is so much more historic and charming. Too bad other people don't feel the same way.

*What kind of freaking store has crazy ass doberman dogs running loose at night? While I get that it's a safety thing, an alarm system would work a lot better and not be such a massive liability. Plus, and I hate to say it, but where do the dogs go potty???