The Mystery of the Three Red Rears - Nancy Drew solves this one the hard way, using something other than her head. Contributed by Alan. Posted by the Web-Ed on 11/25/2022 (click to increase in size).
The young adult book market isn't what it was when an enterprising writer-publisher named Edward Stratemeyer realized there was gold to be found in a series of short novels aimed at young people and featuring the same characters over and over. (This was before television or even radio prospered with the same "series" concept.) CSR readers may have heard of The Bobbsey Twins or Tom Swift, but we're concerned here with his later creation Nancy Drew, which in addition to the original series of 175 novels spawned three television series and a second, later group of novels. We ourselves recall buying The Clue of the Dancing Puppet at our local K-Mart back in the late 1960s on what must have been a particularly boring winter weekend, although we preferred The Hardy Boys (also created by Stratemeyer!) because they had their own boat and sometimes got beaten up, making their adventures a bit more masculine than those of Nancy and her friends.
Anyway, there is apparently something of a cottage industry in putting out fake versions of Nancy Drew covers, although
of course we're only interested if they involve spanking. That brings us to The Mystery of the Three Red Rears,
sent to us by an alert Alan, one of CSR's long-time contributors. Purportedly written by one "Herbie Hind"
("her behind"), from the revised cover art we'd have to say that Nancy has found the clue that breaks the case,
and that once the unknown spanker puts that paddle to its proper use the cause of the "Three Red Rears" that belong
to Nancy and her two friends (whose names elude us now) will remain a mystery no longer 
.
We searched for some time but could not find the original art. From the style, we think it may have come from the title's first printing in the 1930s or 40s.
