“Collectors.” Mrs. Taylor rolled her eyes. “They can be absolutely nutty when it comes to children’s series books. Well, at least some of them are. I don’t want to make you think they’re all lunatics, like Gordon, but there are a handful who go to extremes to complete their collections.”

“I didn’t realize books like that are so collectible.” Bronwyn leaned on the reference desk as she regarded Mrs. Taylor.

“What kind of extremes?” Lizzie wanted to know.

Diesel had wandered over to sit in front of Mrs. Taylor. He meowed plaintively, and she glanced down with a smile. “Cats don’t care about these things, do they, sir?” She turned to regard Lizzie and Bronwyn. “Oh, my, yes, these series, especially Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, are very collectible. Those are probably the two most famous, but there are plenty of others that collectors go after.”

Like the Veronica Thane books, I thought. A couple of weeks ago, in preparation for lending items from my collection for the library’s exhibit, I checked values for a few books on the Advanced Book Exchange website. Early copies of the first two Veronica Thane books in fine condition were going for mid–three figures.

“But what about the extremes?” Lizzie asked.

“I know of at least two cases when collectors hounded the families of authors for memorabilia and copies of books the authors might have had in their own collections.” Mrs. Taylor shook her head. “I imagine some families might be glad of the money collectors are willing to pay, but it still seems indecent to me to badger people because they don’t want to deal with you.”

“Are these children’s books really expensive?” Teresa asked. “Along the lines of first editions of literary fiction, for example?”

Mrs. Taylor shook her head. “I have no idea what kind of prices literary first editions might command. I’m not really interested enough in them, frankly. But yes, a really fine first edition of one of the first Nancy Drew books, especially one signed by Mildred Wirt Benson, might go for six or seven thousand or more.”

“Dollars?” Bronwyn almost squeaked the word out.

I decided to rejoin the conversation. “Avid collectors with enough money will pay what they have to in order to get what they want.” I had bought a few first editions of treasured adult mystery novels over the years, though I never spent anything even close to a thousand dollars for one book, much less six or seven thousand.

“I think I’m going to look through my mother’s trunks in the attic this weekend.” Lizzie grinned. “She had some Nancy Drew books when she was a girl, and I could be sitting on a small fortune.”