Nancy Drew Girl Detective #31: Perfect Cover (Book Two of the Perfect Mystery Trilogy)

Nancy is off to New York City after winning a River Heights beauty pageant and becoming the local face of Pretty Face, a big deal cosmetics company. She dislikes the lotion they told her to wear so much that she hands over all her free samples to Bess. Bess loves how it tingles, but Nancy finds the sensation uncomfortable and weird. As soon as they land, they meet Kyle, the owner of the company, and his daughter Kelly. Kelly won the competition the year before.

Almost as soon as they check into their hotel rooms, with Nancy and Kelly sharing one room and George and Bess in another, Nancy gets a list of all the events and activities she must attend. The first of which is an opening night party that brings together all the winners and the runner ups. Piper, the runner up to Nancy, makes it clear that she deserved to win more than Nancy did.

The lights suddenly go out and then come back to reveal a bunch of costumed actors on stage. They all wear this grotesque makeup that makes it look like their faces are inflamed or bleeding. The actors say to avoid the cosmetic line because it tests on animals and because it will kill you. Nancy spots Kelly coming back looking out of breath and finds a vial of stage makeup in their bathroom trash. Kelly says that some of the other previous winners were in the room that same night.

Nancy also meets Anna, one of the chemists who work behind the scenes. They get along really well, which is why Anna feels comfortable calling Nancy and asking her to meet up the next morning because she needs to talk about something important. Anna doesn't show up to the meeting and makes Nancy late for a pageant thing. That pisses off Harrison, the pageant coordinator. He actually tells Nancy multiple times that she either needs to take things seriously or drop out completely.

She instead heads to the lab for the company and manages to talk her way into the back. Anna's partner tells her that Anna sent him an email that said she had a family emergency back in her native Argentina and will be gone for awhile, which is weird because she told Nancy she no longer had any family back there. He does let her see the email though including when it was sent. Nancy gets in touch with Anna's brother who tells her to do whatever it takes to find his sister.

That leads her back to the laboratory and to her talking her way into Anna's office. Adam, Kyle's head of security, catches her and makes her leave. Before he catches her though, she discovers that Anna hid a copy of an article in Spanish under her desk. She and George break into Kyle's room, which leads to him almost catching them until they hide under the bed. Once he leaves, they figure out his password and go through his computer. George finds that he sent the email that supposedly came from Anna.

Though they assume that it's probably Kyle, they think it might involve Kelly too. Bess keeps following her around and contacts Nancy when she sees the other girl having a secret rendezvous. They rush over and catch her with some dude who has a goatee and long hair. Kelly confesses that her dad keeps her on an extremely short leash and never lets her do anything fun. The guy was her old boyfriend from back home, and she invited him to come visit her. She's hardly ever around because they keep sneaking off together.

Nancy sends the article to Ned back at college via fax because he has friends who speak Spanish. She doesn't get a response back but does notice Adam watching her. She comes back the next day and finds that she never did get a response. The front desk worker looks it up and finds that she got a return fax less than an hour later. That makes her realize that Adam took it.

The article was all about some random type of frog and how some companies were doing experiments with it because this type of frog has something in its skin that creates a numbing effect. Some companies believe that this can help rejuvenate skin and make it look younger. It's basically like Botox but cheaper. Ahem, remember the way the lotion made their skin feel?

So, Nancy learns that Pretty Face has a new office that isn't yet open and thinks Kyle might have Anna hidden there. She heads over and makes up an excuse that she's his new assistant and that he left his phone there, which the security guard believes because he got a message that someone might stop by. Nancy finds Anna tied up on the ground just as both Adam and Kyle get there.

Kyle basically kidnapped Anna because she figured out that he was testing on animals and using animals in his products like the frog, despite his company having a reputation as an animal friendly company. Before she could tell anyone about the frogs, he hid her away. Adam is his muscle and there to make sure Nancy doesn't screw things up. The two men grab them, drag them upstairs, and put them on a helicopter as Nancy tries to figure a way out...

*I love that Nancy sends the article to Ned and then waits for a response because it's apparently so hard to find someone who speaks Spanish in New York City.

*The article that Nancy finds is almost two years old. That means either Anna had it for way too long and didn't do anything or that it took her way too long to find it.

*Kyle is so obsessed with his daughter that he literally doesn't let her go out with her friends and checks on her room to make sure she's there by eight. He also uses her name and the word princess as his password. I'm surprised he didn't make her stay in the same room as him.

*Harrison does have a good point. Nancy is there and competing against girls who actually give a crap, but she's constantly late and always rushing off to do something else. I also have no clue how she won anyway.

*Nancy gets lost multiple times and have NYC people look down on her, which I thought was pretty realistic.

*At one point, she's so busy investigating that she only has 30 minutes to get across town to a fancy dress party. Bess gets them a taxi, does her makeup in the car, and helps her change clothes with Kelly. Somehow, jeans, high heeled sandals, a tank top, and a velvet blazer is appropriate for a fancy party.