The Clue in the Crossword Cipher

Happy Saturday, y'all, and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we are on the forty-fourth book in the series, The Clue in the Crossword Cipher:

This is two books in a row featuring a largely brown cover, both by Rudy Nappi.  This time Nancy has a most excellent dress on with a fun chevron pattern that I like, but I like 99 Steps better than this one.

Case file:  Nancy's new friend Carla Ponce invites Nancy, Bess, and George to Peru to see if they can figure out the mystery behind a wood carving that's been in her family for 300 years, featuring a monkey and a crossword cipher on it.  We get another travelogue story with sightseeing in Peru and the Argentine (when did we start calling it Argentina instead of the Argentine?) while Nancy matches wits with a mysterious criminal known only as El Gato, The Cat.  She eventually finds (yet another) buried treasure near the Nazca lines.

Here's my card:

Yep, I found a chevron patterned paper in my stash in a color that coordinates with the book cover, and I had to do a monkey stamp since the wooden plaque has a monkey on it.  I used the colors of Nancy's dress as supporting colors on my card.

I will admit that monkeys are another human-adjacent thing that I find kind of creepy (add it to the list of dolls, puppets, and clowns).  But this little guy from Fox & Friends is rather cute.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Fox & Friends, Really Retro
Ink:  Soft Suede, Versamark
Paper:  Tahitian Tide, Soft Suede, Thick Basic White, Park Lane DSP, Tahitian Tide & Parakeet Party DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, mini Dimensionals, Transparent Dots

Here's my second card:

There's a scene in a book where Bess is surprised by the sudden appearance of an alpaca in the window of a restaurant and thinks it's going to bite George (who, let's be honest, usually deserves it for the abominable way she treats Bess).  I don't have an alpaca stamp but I do have several llamas so I went with that and it just occurred to me that I could have used the extra long-necked llama from Long Time No See.  Dangit, missed opportunity!

I found another chevron patterned paper and used the colors of the book cover for the party streamers behind the llama.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Birthday Fiesta
Ink:  Early Espresso, Tahitian Tide, Versamark
Paper:  Tahitian Tide, Gumball Green, Peach Pie, Copper Clay, Night of Navy, Thick Basic White, Watercolor Wonder DSP
Accessories:  Fiesta Time dies, Tasteful Labels dies, white EP, Dimensionals, In Color Flat Pearls

This one isn't among my favorite Drews, perhaps because I still have yet to visit anywhere in South America, but it's an okay installment in the series so I give it three stars.  If you're inspired to make a card based on this book, please leave me a comment below and I hope you have fun with it!  Be sure to visit next week when Nancy takes on The Spider Sapphire Mystery.