Nancy Drew: Girl Detective is a 2004–2012 book series which replaced the long-running Nancy Drew mystery series. This new series is written in first person narration, from Nancy's point of view, and features updated versions of the main Nancy Drew characters. New secondary characters are introduced to populate River Heights and appear over multiple books, adding a framework to Nancy's world. Though this series has many improvements over the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, the drastic change in the main characters' personalities was hard for many readers to accept. The series was negatively reviewed by many fans of the series, mainly over the change in Nancy's character. In 2008, the series was changed into a trilogy format, which gained even more negative reviews than before. Simon & Schuster cut back to 4 books a year in 2010, before low sales finally forced the cancellation of the Girl Detective series in 2011. In 2013, the Nancy Drew Diaries series was launched as the replacement for Girl Detective.

History

In the 90s and early 2000s, sales of the Nancy Drew novel series began to drop. At a Nancy Drew conference held in early 2005 in New York, a Simon and Schuster representative said that the digests had been selling about 30,000 copies. In order to boost sales, the original series was ended and the Nancy Drew series re-launched. This new incarnation of Nancy Drew was initially supervised by Bonnie Bryant (Jacobson), with three ghost writers writing the initial six books. The first volume of the new series, Without a Trace, reached the New York Times bestseller list in the Children's Series category and #113 on USA Today's Top 150 sellers list due to the .99 cents introductory price.

Differences from the original series

The publisher describes the series in the following way: ""Nancy Drew has a new spring in her step. And it's no wonder: We've given her whole world more oomph. In the all-new Nancy Drew, we've enhanced and expanded everything you've loved about Nancy, Bess, and George, and the rest of Nancy's crew. You loved the series before, but with more dimension, you'll love the series even more now! Learn why River Heights is such a hotbed of criminal activity, meet some new key sources of information for Nancy on all her cases, become acquainted with Nancy's new nemesis, and become even closer friends with Bess and George. And that's just the beginning..."" Nancy Drew in this version is a less than perfect teenage girl prone to forgetfulness, an object of jokes, and interested in other subjects over mysteries. Bess Marvin has gained skills in mechanics and computers and is no longer slightly overweight, and described as fashionable and trendy. George Fayne has become moody and sloppily dressed in this series, always more interested in tech and sarcastic retorts than solving mysteries. Bess and George also gain siblings and family members with careers. Ned now lives in River Heights, working part-time for his father's newspaper The River Heights Bugle.

Setting

The Nancy Drew: Girl Detective novels are usually based in the fictional town of River Heights, which is located in Illinois. Other fictional cities that are mentioned are Silver Creek, East Bank, Cutler Falls, and Trib Falls, which are all near River Heights and the Muskoka River. River Heights is a 1-hour drive west of the real city, Chicago, which has been mentioned frequently.

Main characters

List of titles

Books in the Nancy Drew: Girl Detective series were released in paperback format by Simon & Schuster. From 2008 to 2012, the stories were presented in three-book arcs, drawing the mystery out over three separate, but linked, titles. The re-designed covers feature model Jessica Silverman as Nancy Drew.

Main series

Super Mysteries

Spin-offs

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew

Starting in 2006, Aladdin Paperbacks published a new series to replace the Nancy Drew Notebooks series for younger readers; it exists in the same universe as the Nancy Drew: Girl Detective series. It features Nancy Drew, George Fayne, and Bess Marvin as eight-year-olds in the third grade at River Heights Elementary School, and solving kid sized mysteries, from finding a stolen ice cream formula entry to the culprit who cut the cake before the bride. This series also sets George's mother working her own catering company, and reveals George's real name to be Georgia. This series ended in 2015 to be replaced by the Nancy Drew Clue Book series.

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys Super Mystery

A crossover with The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers series. The stories are told in first person, alternating chapters, between Frank's or Joe's, and Nancy's perspective. The first title in the series acts as an introduction between the characters. This series published one title per year until the end of the Girl Detective and Undercover Brothers series in 2012.

Graphic novels

Beginning in 2005, Papercutz began issuing a new series of Nancy Drew graphic novels as an offshoot of the Girl Detective series. The series is edited by Jim Salicrup, written by Stefan Petrucha, and illustrated by Sho Murase. All the storylines are completely new. The manga-style illustrations and technical allusions (Nancy's hybrid car, George's tablet PC) give Nancy and her friends a 21st-century spin. There are several nods and tie-ins to other Nancy Drew media. In The Old Fashioned Mystery of The Haunted Dollhouse, the citizens of River Heights dresses up as if they were in the 1930s to celebrate an event. In Global Warming, Dr. Craven from Her Interactive's PC game The Creature of Kapu Cave appears. The Dana Girls and their friends appear in both High School Musical Mystery and High School Musical Mystery Part 2: The Lost Verse, initially as rivals to Nancy, though they eventually team up to solve the mystery. The series also has continuity, and several multi-issue cases. Issues #9-11 (Ghost in the Machinery, The Disoriented Express, Monkey-Wrench Blues) form "The High Miles Mystery" trilogy; Issues #17 and #18 (Night of the Living Chatchke and City Under the Basement) form a two-part storyline; and Issues #20 and #21 (High School Musical Mystery and High School Musical Mystery Part 2: The Lost Verse) form The High School Musical Mystery, which also features fellow Stratemeyer Syndicate series The Dana Girls. In 2010, the series was rebooted as Nancy Drew: Girl Detective - The New Case Files. These new novels center around a River Heights that has become obsessed with vampire books. The third novel of this new series, Together with the Hardy Boys, featured a crossover with The Hardy Boys, who also had their own graphic novel series at that time. This ended up being the last issue, and the series was cancelled after that. In 2014, the series began being re-released as an offshoot of the new Nancy Drew Diaries series, containing two volumes per issue.