Nancy Drew #73

Enemy Match

Blurb from the back cover of the book: The excitement of a professional tennis tournament provides the backdrop for Nancy Drew’s latest adventure. An old school friend, tennis star Nina Ford, asks Nancy to help her father, who’s been convicted of theft and sent to prison. But on his way, he disappeared. It’s up to Nancy to find him – and the documents needed to prove his innocence. Helped by her irrepressible new assistant, fourteen-year-old Midge Watson, Nancy investigates the mysterious situation. What she discovers is completely unexpected – someone is trying to fix the tennis matches Nina is scheduled to play! Seeking answers to more than one puzzling question, Nancy pursues a long and perilous string of clues to unmask a dangerous gang of ruthless villains. But can she expose them before they get to her?

Basic Plot: Calisher framed Ford for mail fraud that Calisher had been conducting and hid the evidence in a safe.  He coordinated the theft of the safe but didn’t know where the accomplices dumped it.  Ford was believed to have drowned when the police car that was conducting his to jail was washed off a bridge.

You may also click here for a synopsis of this story by Todd Latoski, from the June 2006 edition of the online Nancy Drew fanzine, The Sleuth.

Setting

New Brighton - town 100 miles from River Heights

Recurring Characters

Bess Marvin, Carson Drew, Hannah Gruen

Characters and Suspects
  • Nina Ford - former schoolmate of Nancy’s, tennis player
  • Kimberly Van Rensselaer - snooty member of Nancy’s court
  • John Ford - Nina’s father; convicted of securities fraud
  • Mrs. Milton - festival organizer
  • Midge Watson - 14-year-old red head - Nancy’s self-proclaimed “assistant”
  • Mr. Watson - Midge’s father
  • Sue Ellen - girl in backwater village
  • Sam Jackson - hermit
  • Lt. Nelson
  • Marie Jonescu - Romanian tennis player
  • Patty Winston - tennis opponen

Culprits
  • Aaron Calisher - Mr. Ford’s business partner
  • Emily - his wife
  • Bull Tolliver - canoe shop owner, aka Paul Willow
  • Ivan Foster - Calisher’s employee, has anchor tattoo on right hand
  • Silk - gambler; lives at Foxhall Mansion

motivation: Calisher needs money to cover his gambling debts to Silk

Resolution

Calisher tries to get Nina to throw her tennis matches, but Midge spies him calling in the threats from a phone booth.  Nancy and Midge sneak into Foxhall Mansion and also find the safe in the a culvert below the bridge

Mis-adventures

floor of church rots away under feet
canoe capsizes
kidnapped from car
sliding down into cave
Key clues
 Ford’s handcuffs
road detour the night of the safe robbery
Nancy's talents Nancy is the queen of the River Heights Bicentennial Festival

Nancy's outfits

Bicentennial queen dress:  white, satin, lace - patterned after an 18th century ballgown

Meaning of the title

pg 122 - play the Enemy Match

reward


items of interest

pg 157 “I’m glad you’re not perfect all the time.  I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
Midge is a combination of Dr. Watson (from Sherlock Holmes) and Cherry Ames’ harum-scarum teenage friend Midge Fortune

THE COVERS

Below is a gallery of all the covers I have found for  Enemy Match. Below each picture is the artist's name, and a brief description of the scene depicted.

Wanderer "Arch" cover by Hector Garrido:  fantasy montage of bridge, Foxhall, Nina’s tennis and Mr. Ford (? - Ford should have a beard - possibly Mr. Calisher?)

Minstrel cover by Bob Berran: p. 60 - riding the rapids with Midge on New Brighton River

Minstrel cover by Aleta Jenks: p. 63 - capsized   p. 78 lunging for life preserver

Armada (UK) cover by unknown artist: similar to Jenks cover, plus Nina playing tennis in the foreground


Wahlströms (Swedish) cover by Hector Garrido Tammi (Finnish) cover by Hector Garrido
 


THE PRINTINGS

This chronological listing of printings mimics the identification system developed by David Farah for his guide on Nancy Drew. He has given me permission to replicate his system for the purpose of categorizing the paperbacks from this series. For those of you not familiar with his methods for identifying a printing, the first line describes the outside of the book (cover/spine/back cover) and the second line describes the internal pages (inside cover/pre-text pages/post-text pages/inside back cover)


1st
Garrido/W1/blue on lavender/2.95,49735-9,+   
bl/pwt/bl/tp+/cp/tc/bl//Fan ad/ND#57-74 ao of/bl/bl

1st (General Publishing Co Ltd)
Garrido/GPC/blue on lavender/2.95,49735-9,+   
bl/pwt/bl/tp+/cp/tc/bl//Fan ad/ND#57-74 ao of/bl/bl
 
2nd
Garrido/W1/blue on lavender/3.50,49735-9,+   
bl/pwt/bl/tp+/cp/tc/bl//ND#57-78 ao of/HB#59-85 ao of/NQH#1/bl

3rd
Garrido/W1/blue on lavender/3.50,49735-9,+   
bl/pwt/bl/tp+/cp/tc/bl//ND#57-78 ao of/NDCF#1/NDCF#2&#3/bl

1st Minstrel
Berran/M1/periwinkle blue, 350/pic, 64283-9   
bl/exc/ND#57-80/tp/cp+/tc/bl/pwt/bl//ND#57-79 ao of/HB#59-87 ao of/Min (14)/Min (14) of/ECo (8) of/JG (6) of/SS#1-3 of/bl

2nd Minstrel
Berran/M1/periwinkle blue, 350/pic, 64283-9 
bl UPC/exc/ND#57-87/tp/cp+/tc/bl/pwt/bl//ND#57-88 ao of/HB#59-95 ao of/LCA (3) of/BF#1-4 of/MyL (4) of/Min (14)/Min (17) of/bl

3rd Minstrel
Jenks/M1/dark wine,350/pic, 64283-9   
BF#1-16/exc/ND#57-102/tp/cp+/tc/bl/pwt/bl//ND#57-102, g1 of/NewBT#1-25 of/RHts#1-12 of/blx4/NewBT ad

FOREIGN TITLES

Language

Foreign Title

Title's translation

Swedish

Kitty och tjuvgömman

Nancy and the place for harboring

Finnish

Neiti etsivä ja kassakaapin arvoitus

Nancy and the puzzle of the safe

 


Enemy Match, artwork by Hector Garrido © 1984 by Simon & Schuster, New York.
Enemy Match,, artwork by Bob Berran © 1987 by Simon & Schuster, New York.
Enemy Match,, artwork by Aleta Jenks © by Simon & Schuster, New York.
Enemy Match, artwork unattributed © 1985 by Fontana Paperbacks, London.
Kitty och tjuvgömman, artwork by Hector Garrido © 1984 by Simon & Schuster, New York.
Neiti etsivä ja kassakaapin arvoitus, artwork by Hector Garrido © 1984 by Simon & Schuster, New York.

 

© 2002, 2016 Lea Shangraw Fox