Carolyn Keene

And somewhere inside a book packaging factory called Megabooks Inc., the 124th and final Nancy Drew Files mystery rolls off the line.

The author is Carolyn Keene, not a person, a brand name, a legal fiction, a pen name of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

The human who actually typed this book up, we actually have no idea as far as I can tell.

Maybe book boys, you figured it out.

Let me set up the plot a little bit.

18-year-old Nancy, Bess, and George fly to Santa Monica to volunteer at a, quote, cyber cafe.

Yeah, we're digging into the Nancy Drew Files number 124, Crime at the Chat Cafe by Carolyn Keene.

Exciting stuff.

Tell me, where does your passion for mystery begin?

Where does it begin? Oh, it has to be Caroline Keane and the Nancy Drew novels.

I was reading them when I was

such a child.

Here we go.

Caroline Keene, K-E-E-N-E, oh, Carolyn, Carolyn.

Carolyn Keene was the author pseudonym used on stories about what teenage detective? Carolyn Keene was the author pseudonym used on stories about what teenage detective? Goethe.

Looks like Yvonne had it.

...

Carolyn Keene owns Nancy Drew, and that's complicated.

I'm 99% sure what you're describing probably was an issue.

It is not one-

If I remember, she was like a, a trick diver, and I think she, she tried to, she learned how to fly a plane early on.

I mean, she was just a real character, but her name was suppressed for years because it was hidden under the, the pen name of Carolyn Keene, and there was a lot of controversy whether the, who was the original writer of the first 30 books.

And one, one woman claimed it was her, and other people claimed it was them, so finally research has come out that it was probably Millie Benson who did the first 30.

Wow, I never knew that, and I, I knew the later versions, obviously.

[laughs]

... who doesn't know that Carolyn Keene isn't real.

Uh, you know, like-

Uh-oh

I finished, for books, I finished The Thousand Dollar Tan Line, Veronica Mars number one by Rob Thomas, five stars.

I finished The Clue in the Diary, Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew number seven, five stars.

I finished The Oxford Detective Society.

That is the first in the series.