Sleuthing Sundays - Nancy Drew 26, 27

The Clue of the Leaning Chimney (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories 26)

"My dear," he said, "your powers of deduction contain the wisdom of a Chinese philosopher."  p.142

Nancy is on her way to the bank when she almost runs over a mysterious man!  But he is ok, though mean, so Nancy knows something is up.  Beth asks Nancy to help her cousin look for a valuable pit of rare clay for his pottery studio, leading to an encounter with a Chinese man which doubles back around to the first mystery, of course. Even though the mystery involves Chinese people it is only vaguely racist which is something considering when they were written and the horribleness of The Ivory Charm mystery.  I was stuck by the idea of being double crossed.  Nancy's villains are always mean and cruel and sometimes I want someone close to her to be the one lying and scheming, just to throw her off.  There's a little bit of that in this book.

She knew that the young detective was determined to solve the mystery, but that she would not do anything foolhardy.  p.113

And Hannah is a fool if she really believes this to be true because Nancy will take so many chances and get knocked out, kidnapped, and/or locked away a number of times in any mystery and never think twice about it.  Good thing she is only up against idiots.

The Secret of the Wooden Lady (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories 27)

"If you use the ingenuity and the perseverance I credit you with, Nancy, I believe you'll solve this case."  p.102

Nancy is all set for an adventure on the high seas or something.  I do like how the books manage to tie in that all of Nancy's gang of friends can sail and have sailing experience. This time Nancy is asked by her father to accompany him to find the missing title of a clipper ship so that an acquaintance can buy it.  But Nancy is in for more than that when another mystery about the ship surfaces involving the missing figurehead.
This is one of the few mysteries that doesn't have a completely separate mystery that ties into the original mysteries.  Both are related to the ship and that makes more sense than a lot of Nancy's other mysteries.