Review by Bundt Lust

Nancy’s 11th outing takes her to a working ranch in Arizona, where she is to stay with her cousins’ family. However, Nancy arrives at the airport to a less-than-warm welcome from a ranch hand, only to find that Ed Rawley was bitten by a rattlesnake and is in hospital. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, cousins Bess and George are stranded at the airport due to bad weather, so Nancy has to explore by herself.

A phantom horse has been sighted on the ranch just before bad things happen (broken pipes, downed power lines, rattlesnake bites),and it’s up to teenage supersleuth Nancy to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding a historical romance that unfolded on the ranch between Frances Humber, daughter of the local sheriff, and outlaw Dirk Valentine. Before he died, Dirk buried his treasure for Frances to find using a series of hidden clues, and the treasure remains somewhere on ranch property. Besides Shadow Ranch, Nancy gets to explore a canyon full of petroglyphs, a Native American shop, a ghost town, and abandoned cave dwellings.

There are a number of suspects: Dave the ranch hand, Tex the head wrangler, Shorty the cook, and Mary Yazzie, a Native American jeweler. Nancy meets other characters over the phone, including a famous novelist, the local sheriff, and the Rawleys.

Several new features have been added, including a larger game window, which I liked, although navigating a full inventory could be confusing at times. Nancy gets to learn about horses, barrel racing and how to use a lariat. To get from place to place (there are six major locations), Nancy rides Bob the quarter horse. Nancy can search for information on the web with her cell phone, which provides numerous hints as to how to solve puzzles. There is a strong educational element here, as Nancy sifts through information on not only ranch life (cattle branding, barrel racing, picking vegetables, feeding horses), but numerous other topics (knitting, agates, petroglyphs, flowers).

I liked the nature of the puzzles, although many reviewers complained about the repetitive chores, including daily egg collecting, vegetable picking, cake baking, and feeding the animals. Nancy is expected to help out during her visit by performing tasks for various characters, including putting together a bridle, collecting eggs and vegetables, arranging a jewelry display, and collecting arrowheads. There are a fair number of slider puzzles and several mazes. This game is more difficult than others in the series but not as hard as Secret of Blackmoor Manor.

Secret of Shadow Ranch had a very strong story, good character development, excellent music (Spanish guitar, country western, scary music in the ghost town that will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck), improved graphics, well integrated puzzles, and a satisfying conclusion (which I didn’t find in Secret of Blackmoor Manor). Plenty of romance and suspense for young sleuths!