Book review: vintage Nancy Drew

I went to a little free library yesterday and there were two vintage copies of some Nancy Drew books. These copies mentioned a copyright date of 1940-something and 1950-something (the books were not directly subsequent parts of the series) so I was wondering if they were original editions. After looking it up online, I found out that these editions were published in the 1960s, so they're still pretty old. 

These books were further along in the series than I remember reading as a kid, so I was curious about what I'd think of them now. The editions from the 1960s contain only one illustration at the beginning and one on the cover, compared to more recent editions (from the 1980s to present-day) that contained a few illustrations interspersed throughout the book. 

This does not count towards my reading challenge, as these books are not primarily written for an adult audience. I remember reading books from this series in 3rd grade, possibly a little before or after that too.

This book, The Clue in the Jewel Box (#20 in the series), was a very quick read; I probably finished it within an hour or so. The general tone of the book was as I remembered it, and the primary recurring characters (Nancy's best friends, father, housekeeper, and boyfriend) were familiar. 

In the past, when reading them as a kid, I didn't pay much heed to trying to analyze the setting or that kind of thing. Apparently, the town that Nancy lives in (River Heights) is fictional, but I was wondering where it was supposed to be based on. 

If I had to guess, it might've been based on a town in upstate New York. It's mentioned that the town is on a river, and there's another town across the river, as well as ferry service on the river. The town isn't portrayed as extremely small. In this particular book, a building built during the revolutionary period is mentioned, which also implies that the location is somewhere that was part of the original 13 colonies. 

The books are still interesting and entertaining enough, albeit rather brief to read now. There's also a nostalgia element. I can't say whether children nowadays would be interested in this series, since maybe they can't even read well enough to even read a book in the first place.