Oh, yeah. Nancy Drew. I read them not-quite-obsessively when I was young. Er--they never seemed odd to me, so I'm amused at your "Hand to God, I'm not making this up!" I mean, when I was 9 or 10 or whatever, people in books were always doing wierd shit. I can remember going through my editions and coloring all the girls' hair--Nancy got orange, Bess got yellow, and I was mad that the illustrators had seen fit to ink in George's hair so I couldn't take a crack at it.

Although I think I did get tired of the deux ex machina of chloroform. And I thought Ned was a bore.