Night of the Living Chatchke

Nancy Drew: Girl Detective Graphic Novels #17

by Stefan Petrucha, Sarah Kinney

One of ICv2's top ten graphic novel series for kids continues with part one of a special two-part tale. Nancy Drew travels to Turkey with her father, attorney Carson Drew, who plans to negotiate the sale of his client's ancestral estate. When the Girl Detective finds that mysterious artifacts have been disappearing, she turns her suspicions to Harland Severino. Nancy does some sleuthing that leads her beneath the property into an unexpected environment: the ancient ruins of a city long forgotten by time, filled with priceless ancient treasures that certain people will do anything to get at!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Mystery, Young Adult, Fiction, Comics, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Stefan Petrucha (born January 27, 1959) is an American writer for adults and young adults. He has written graphic novels in the The X-Files and Nancy Drew series, as well as science fiction and horror.
Born in the Bronx, he has spent time in the big city and the suburbs, and now lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, fellow writer Sarah Kinney, and their daughters. At times he has been a tech writer, an educational writer, a public relations writer and an editor for trade journals, but his preference is for fiction in all its forms.

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library)]

I liked the story and the artwork; what I didn't like was all the advertisements in the back matter. I only paid a dollar for this at a garage sale, and I still feel like I didn't get what I paid for.

[Roxi]

First of all, what the hell is s Chatchke? Thank god for Google! It is described as "A small, decorative item or souvenir, usually of no particular value" which makes so much sense now I've finished book 1.
🔎
Nancy and her dad, Carson go to Turkey to help sell the house of Alda, who has a keen interest in Mr Drew, and the feeling seems mutual!
Carson buys Alda an ugly statue, or Chatchke, from a local bazaar, and from the moment it is delivered, strange things keep happening. Could it really be haunted?
🔎
Admittedly, I picked this graphic novel to read as I knew it'd be a quick one.
If you're a fan of newer Nancy Drew books, you might enjoy this, if you like graphic novels. However, if you prefer the original old school stories, I'd steer away from these.
🔎

[Alex]

Just okay.

[Scarlett Jinx]

It took me literal 15 minutes max.

[Wemple]

Petrucha is on my favorite author list!

[James Crawford]

The story takes place in Turkey where Nancy has accompanied her father. His client is a woman named Alda Oktar and she's in bad financial shape. There's also a strange statue that she buys that is said to be haunted and that seemingly keeps moving on its own.

Nancy catches some thugs digging in the basement and the statue ends up coming down from upstairs and scares the thugs. It seems that they have uncovered some kind of city underneath the woman's house.

It also seems that Nancy's father is attracted to Olda.

It's the first of a two-part story, and it's rather interesting.

[Shonda]

Carson Drew is traveling to Istanbul, Turkey to settle a client’s estate. Nancy joins him and winds up on another case. When things start to disappear in the house, Nancy wonders if the client’s home is haunted! One night she hears strange noises and goes to investigate. She discovers the ruins of an ancient city and begins to wonder why Harland Severino really wants to purchase the estate. (This is book one of “The Secret Within”.)

[Teri]

This book wasn't as good as the last one in the series I read.

I'm not sure if that's due to my reading the books out of order or something else, but I'm not a fan of the "Oh, let's introduce a bad guy as someone I knew in the past and then give his backstory" literary device, and this book definitely falls into that category.

[Bridget]

This was actually an okay book. I was skeptical about tampering with Nancy Drew for a graphic novel. I lowered it to three stars because I'm ticked that they made it a serial like in the old comic books, so I was left hanging!

[Sara MG]

Nancy Drew in graphic novel! Cool! This is the first graphic novel of the series I have tried. I enjoyed the story and the artwork. I love the spooky haunted statue. This is only part 1 of the story, so I'll be on the lookout for book 2 to see where it goes from here.

[Alsie]

Kind of weird

[Sean]

I've read most of these graphic novels and this was was really terrible.

[Candace]

O_O :P

[Nam]

So the salesman was a kid! Poor kid, but very smart. I wonder how he knew that such an ugly statue would catch Alda's attention?

[Lauren]

pretty short because its a graphic novel, but I liked it