Nancy Drew Files #125-127 (Unreleased?)

Some quick background information, the Nancy Drew Files was a spin-off of the Nancy Drew Digests. The Nancy Drew Files were written for teenagers and were darker then the Digests. The series had 124 books and lasted from 1986 to 1997.


There was another series set in the same continuity called “The Hardy Boys Casefiles”. When this series got cancelled with #127, (not long after the Files did) books #128-134 were left in various stages of completion. We have ISBN numbers for the cancelled books, and we know the titles for two of them. One of the unpublished Casefiles (#130) got published as Hardy Boys Digest #150, “The Crisscross Crime”.


I’ve long suspected that a similar thing may have happened with an unpublished Nancy Drew Files book. I’ve discovered an ISBN number for Nancy Drew Files #128, suggesting that like the Casefiles, they had multiple books being written before the series ended. However, unlike the unpublished Casefiles, what happened to these books is a bit of a mystery.


The only unpublished Nancy Drew Files book we have an ISBN for is the aforementioned #128. There’s listing for a Nancy Drew Files #125 titled “Teen Model”, but this appears to be a mislisting of the Digest “The Teen Model Mystery”. So, we have no ISBNs for Nancy Drew Files #125-127, and I think I know why.


If you do a search for Hardy Boys Casefiles #130, you won’t find an ISBN. You have to search for “The Crisscross Crime”. I suspect that Nancy Drew Files #125-127 were actually published as Nancy Drew Digests, which is why I’ve never been able to find an ISBN for any of them. This might seem a bit far-fetched, but I might have already found one of them.


I’ve recently discovered that a few Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew ghostwriters had been listing their work on LinkedIn, so I made an account there to see what I could find. I discovered the profile for an author named Denise Hidalgo. On her profile, she lists this as one of the books she wrote: “The E-Mail Mystery, Nancy Drew Files (Megabooks; Simon & Schuster)".  
This is bizarre because “The E-Mail Mystery” is a Nancy Drew Digest (#144), yet she listed it as a Nancy Drew Files book. Admittedly, this could a mistake, but it’s a very odd mistake to make. The book’s plot wouldn’t look out of place in a Files book, and it was published the same year “The Crisscross Crime” was.


I’m almost certain “The E-Mail Mystery” is one of the three missing Files books. I’m also convinced that the other two ended up as Digests as well. The only clue I have to which books these are the ISBN numbers.

“The Crisscross Crime” didn’t change it’s ISBN when it changed series. You can see proof of this in post #8 of this forum thread: www.hardyboyscasefiles.com/forums/index.php?topic=1969.0 I’m linking to this for another reason. I think the trick he used could be used to identify the ISBNs of the missing Files books.


For that reason, I’m posting a list of ISBNs here. This list includes the ISBNs of the last four published Nancy Drew Files books, the ISBN for #128, and the ISBN for “the E-Mail Mystery”.

#121

ISBN10 0671568795

ISBN13 9780671568795

#122

ISBN10 0671568809

ISBN13 9780671568801

#123

ISBN10 0671007483

ISBN13 9780671007485

#124

ISBN10 0606136495

ISBN13 9780606136495

#128

ISBN10: 0671007556

ISBN13: 9780671007553

The E-Mail Mystery

ISBN-10: 0671001213

ISBN-13: 978-0671001216


I’m not sure if these will be of any use, but it’s worth a shot.