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Back The Silence of the Library Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. COVER
  2. PRAISE FOR TITLES BY MIRANDA JAMES
  3. ALSO BY MIRANDA JAMES
  4. TITLE PAGE
  5. COPYRIGHT
  6. DEDICATION
  7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. AFTERWORD
  49. LETTER TO THE READER
  50. SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART

I did a quick Internet search and found the Nancy Drew Sleuth website. It didn’t take long to find the information. Tandy had not illustrated the eleventh book in the series, The Clue of the Broken Locket. That was what that little niggle of memory was about. I revised my information in the e-mail and moved on to the next book.

By the time I finished the books in the first carton, I had begun to realize I’d pulled too many for Bronwyn to use effectively. There were sixteen in the first carton and probably as many in the second one. I pictured the exhibit cases in my mind and figured that twenty books would be about right for the space, by the time Bronwyn added the labels.

I set the laptop aside and went over to the second carton. After a quick examination of the items in it, I pulled three to go with the sixteen I had already written up.

Fifteen minutes later I was finished with those three. I read back through the e-mail, checking the titles and authors represented. I discovered that among the titles were two Veronica Thanes, but not the first, Spellwood Mansion. That one had to be included because it launched the series. Maybe I could finish rereading it over the weekend. Otherwise I would have to wait until the exhibit came down.

I picked up the book and examined it carefully. I pulled off the dust jacket to look at the binding. I frowned. There was no silhouette of Veronica and her two sidekicks, Lucy Carlton and Arthur “Artie” Marsh, on the front cover. That was strange. From what I recalled, all the books had sported the silhouette as part of the design.

I did another search, this time on Veronica Thane, and found a website with several pages devoted to the series. With the enthusiasm for these series books, I figured someone must have researched the publication history, and I was right. There was a page with pictures of the covers of every book in the series, and there were examples of the variations in binding.

And there it was, a picture of a Veronica Thane book sans silhouette. I scanned the long paragraph of information and learned that this particular binding was used only on so-called breeder sets for the first two titles in the series. There was an explanation of breeder sets, which sounded vaguely familiar. The publishers brought out the first two or three volumes in a limited print run to test the waters with readers, to see if the series might catch on. According to the website, the technique worked for Nancy Drew in 1930. The series was an immediate hit. Veronica had a more modest debut two years later.

What I read next made me sit up and whistle.