A review by bargainsleuth
The Sign of the Twisted Candles by Carolyn Keene

4.0

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The Revised Text (RT) of The Sign of the Twisted Candles is the same story as the Original Text (OT), some parts just revised, other parts completely rewritten. Sadie becomes Carol (although later it is revealed her original name is Sadie), the Semitts are now the Jemitts, and Bess and George know Asa Sidney is a distant relative at the start of the story, as opposed to finding out later. Ned also makes an appearance instead of a cameo in the OT.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I usually like the RT's better than the OT's. The story is better crafted, with no loose ends at the conclusion of the story. Sure, the writing is tighter and there's more action because there are 30 less pages, but that keeps the story moving along. There's more sleuthing involved, rather than just stumbling along and finding clues. The other thing I liked about the RT is that the crooks are actually caught being crooked, more than once in this book, instead of just being suspected of wrong doing. There's no question who the bad guys are in this version of the book.

In both versions, Carson Drew is not merely a shadow figure in the stories, he's there to conduct business at several junctures which was nice to see. Too often in books he's called away to another state, leaving Nancy on her own with only Hannah around to worry about her.

So far of the