The Clue at Black Creek Farm

More of a 1.5 but rounded up because it's not a bad book with unlikable characters - it's just a mystery book with a bad sleuth.

My biggest problem with these newer Nancy Drew books is Nancy Drew herself. She's not very intelligent, she's kind of ...peculiar in her sleuthing - for example in this book she feels a bit bad about snooping through her suspect's computer because ‘they might not be the culprit' but earlier in the book she snooped through another suspect's phone and felt nary a mental qualm.

By far my biggest issue though is just how often in these books that Nancy latches onto one suspect and is fully convinced that they are guilty - only to stumble onto the true criminal and is totally shocked. (What makes it worse is that I usually have the true criminal pegged early on (like in this book) and am left banging my head that Nancy - who is supposed to be this brilliant teen sleuth (thanks, Bess!) - doesn't see it.)

To me, she's just not a very good sleuth and ... honestly, I'm disappointed that this newer Nancy seems to have misplaced her moxie - and I think that's the biggest mystery.