Summary
Help Nancy and her friends find out what happened to a superstar's flower hat in the ninth book in the interactive Nancy Drew Clue Book mystery series.
Spring has sprung in River Heights! The annual Flower Sculpture contest is in a couple of days and everyone in town is working hard to finish their floral works of art. But Nancy, Bess, and George are most excited to see the world-famous pop singer, Miss LaLa, perform. The superstar grew up in River Heights and has agreed to kick off the contest with a song. And just when the girls thought life couldn't get any better, they run into Miss LaLa herself! The singer is in a bit of a pickle though: She brought a giant hat made of white peonies for the show but she doesn't have a refrigerator big enough to store it in. George thinks quickly and offers to put it in her mom's catering refrigerator.
But when the girls check on the hat the next morning they see something has gone terribly wrong. Half of the snowy white blooms are wilted and brown! They use their detective skills to rule out a blackout. And George can't remember if she locked the door last night. Could someone have snuck into the kitchen and switched the fresh flowers with droopy ones?
Nancy and her friends are determined to find out! Could it be Madame Withers, whose signature wilted rose perfume was rejected by Miss LaLa? Perhaps it was the famous flower artist Pierre, who was angry that Miss LaLa was the star of the show. Or it maybe it was Benjamin Bing, who ruined his flower sculpture with brown hair spray and had no more white peonies to replace them. It's up to the Clue Crew--and you--to find out!
Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym that Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig used to write Nancy Drew books. The idea of Nancy Drew came from Edward Stratemeyer in 1929. He also had other series, that included the Hardy Boys, but he died in 1930 before the Nancy Drew series became famous. His daughters, Harriet and Edna, inherited his company and maintained Nancy Drew having Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Carolyn Keene, as the principal ghostwriter. During the Depression, they asked Benson to take a pay cut and she refused, which is when Karig wrote the books.
Karig's Nancy Drew books were Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, and Password to Larkspur Lane. He was fired from writing more books because of his refusal to honor the request that he keep his work as Carolyn Keene a secret. He allowed the Library of Congress to learn of his authorship and his name appeared on their catalog cards. Afterwards, they rehired Benson and she wrote until her last Nancy Drew book (#30) was written in 1953, Clue of the Velvet Mask.
Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer also contributed to the Nancy Drew series. Edna wrote plot outlines for several of the early books and Harriet, who claimed to be the sole author, had actually outlined and edited nearly all the volumes written by Benson. The Stratemeyer Syndicate had begun to make its writers sign contracts that prohibited them from claiming any credit for their works, but Benson never denied her writing books for the series.
After Harriet's death in 1982, Simon and Schuster became the owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate properties and in 1994, publicly recognized Benson for her work at a Nancy Drew conference at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. Now, Nancy Drew has several ghostwriters and artists that have contributed to her more recent incarnations.
(Bowker Author Biography)
