More than fifty years later, I can still remember the thrill of poring over the cover illustrations. Just seeing Nancy as she pushed open a secret door made me want to jump out of our three-bedroom brick ranch and into the dusty hallways of some creaky old house (preferably haunted) as I followed in the footsteps of Nancy Drew.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done—not as an amateur detective, but as a mystery novelist. In pursuing my writing career—through journalism, nonfiction, short stories, and full-length fiction—I have gravitated toward mystery as my genre for telling stories at the intersection of the ordinary and the extraordinary. “Nancy Drew, for grownups,” a friend of mine called my Ohnita Harbor mystery series, and I couldn’t have been prouder.

I am among the generations of women who have found inspiration in the Nancy Drew mysteries; to just name a few: Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor; Hillary Clinton; and my friend Laura’s mother who named her dog Nancy Drew.

Nancy Drew mysteries—penned by a series of writers, all under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene—first appeared in 1930 and continued through 175 novels until 2003. Over the years, the series was updated to eliminate racist stereotypes and misogyny. The Nancy of my vintage 1950 mysteries grew up in a household of decidedly white privilege (her father, Carson Drew, was a lawyer). Yet in other ways she was ahead of her time. As Katryn Bury, author of the Drew Leclair mysteries, wrote, “Nancy and her friends made me believe in a better world. … If she could face danger on the reg, and be the hero who saves cis dudes rather than a damsel in distress, maybe things would get better for people who didn’t ‘fit.’”
 
 

At least part of Nancy’s nonconformity was rooted in her relationship with her father, who clearly saw her capabilities. For example, in The Hidden Staircase (second in the series, published in 1930 and revised in 1959), Drew Carson explains one of his current legal cases to his daughter, then listens as Nancy relates her case. In fact, the story makes a point of how seriously he takes his daughter’s sleuthing: “Mr. Drew had listened with great interest. Now, after a few moments of thought, he smiled. ‘Go by all means, Nancy. I realize you’ve been itching to work on a new case—and this sounds like a real challenge…’”

This type of empowering father-daughter relationship is one of the most endearing elements of the mysteries; coincidentally it also illustrates one the factors cited by women CEOs as helping to propel them to the top. As authors of a landmark study by the Rockefeller Foundation and global consulting firm Korn Ferry wrote: “Many specifically gave credit to their fathers who believed in their ability, pushed them to speak up about what they knew and thought, and looked past traditional notions of gender.”

This dynamic has always resonated with me. As the youngest of three daughters in a household with no sons, I experienced my father’s confidence in my abilities. When I started my own communications consulting practice at age thirty-nine, my father told me. “Every time you got a job with a bigger company, I thought, ‘There, she’s set for life.’ But then you’d quit it and go somewhere else. Now you’re going off on your own. You know what? I think you can do anything.’” Best gift he ever gave me.

I pay homage to that conversation with my father—and, perhaps unconsciously to the Drew duo—in a scene in my first novel, The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor. My protagonist, Gabriela, frightened by the murder of someone close to her and beleaguered by a host of other pressures, summons her courage as she recalls a childhood memory of fishing with her father—the only girl along the riverbank.

Nancy and her father, Gabriela and her dad, me and mine—this is the legacy that reminds women that gender does not define, or confine, our abilities.
 
 

As a nerdy and nervous preteen, I admired Nancy for being smart and able to do things (and, I’ll admit, for being pretty and having manageable hair). In Nancy, I saw a capable young woman whose detective prowess was matched by her courage and intellect. She stumbled upon the right clues because she’d had her eyes open for them. This is why I followed Nancy as a young reader—and it’s the same reason I tag along with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple, and Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache. I trust them to take me beyond the fearful and inexplicable and into the safety of knowledge and justice.

Here is the real value of mysteries, far more than mere escapes to Christie’s St Mary Mead or Penny’s Three Pines—or my own Ohnita Harbor, New York. To keep pace with the protagonists, readers must rely on their critical thinking and hone observational skills to distinguish fact from obfuscation. And if ever there was a time to exercise these capabilities, it is now—amid political insanity that shows no sign of stopping and a world spinning out of control into escalating violence and environmental destruction.

Mysteries may not change the world, but they do reinforce the power to take control of our own actions and reactions. We can find the evidence, seek the answers, and act bravely, even boldly, as we follow the next clue and determine what to do. That’s what happens when we put ourselves in the shoes of Nancy Drew.
 

Tears and Trombones

by Nanci Lee Woody

Readers will admire young Joey’s mother, Ellie, as she navigates around poverty and her abusive, philandering, alcoholic husband to help her son achieve his impossible dream of becoming a classical musician. She wasn’t sure what a symphony was and had never set foot in a concert hall, yet without her husband’s knowledge, she managed to scrape together enough courage and money for standing-room only tickets to a San Francisco Symphony performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Joey was in awe of the violinist and the orchestra and sat transfixed throughout this concert that set him at nine years old on his long journey to a musical career. Ellie is deeply proud of her son and does what she can to protect him from his father’s verbal abuse and attempts to dissuade him from a career as “some sissy horn player.” Joey uses his creativity to passively get even with his dad for his cruelty, but his self confidence suffers. He does have Ellie’s backing always, knows she will be there to rescue him if needed. She models for her son loyalty, persistence and hard work and allows no excuses when times are hard. Readers will follow Joey through high school where his musical talent grows. He falls deeply in love with a curly-haired beauty and is torn between his love for her and pursuing his musical dream. He chooses to marry another girl who courts him and offers to work to help him through college. This decision to marry puts Joey into a seemingly endless triangle love affair, even as his professional life explodes. He auditions for the Sacramento Symphony and is offered a position. He plays his horn in Hollywood with studio musicians, performs with The Beach Boys, Dorothy Dandridge and Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. Will Joey ever be able to right his love life? What will Ellie advise him to do? Nanci’s short stories and poems have been published in the California Writers Club Literary Review, A CWC Anthology, October Hill Magazine, The Fault Zone, Sacramento Poetry Society’s Tule Review, Your Daily Poem, The Monterey Poetry Review, the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and many other online and print publications. For reader reviews and samples of her writing and art, visit nancileewoody.com. To listen to the music in Tears and Trombones, from Shostakovich to Johnny Cash, visit bookcompanion.com. Watch on Amazon for Nanci’s new book of poetry coming out this fall. Tears and Trombones is available from Amazon, Bookshop, and your local independent bookseller.

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