Nancy Drew, contest-reporter for the local newspaper, clears a young woman of murder charges.

While participating in a contest at a local newspaper in which school children are asked to submit a news story, local attorney Carson Drew's daughter Nancy intercepts a real story assignment. She "covers" the inquest of the death of a woman who was poisoned. Nancy doesn't think the young woman accused of the crime is guilty and corrals her neighbor Ted into searching for a vital piece of evidence, and they stumble onto the identity of the real killer.—Ron Kerrigan <[email protected]>

Nancy Drew is one of six teenagers competing in the local newspaper's amateur reporter contest. The editor is treating the contest more of a chore and issues the contestants "fluff" stories. Nancy, wanting to deal with hard hitting news, trades her assignment for one of a missing reporter. That assignment is to cover the inquiry into the Kate Lambert murder, and subsequent trial of the accused, Eula Denning. Nancy's reporting skills are slow off the mark as a delay due to a fender bender causes the paper to not only lose reporting Denning's charge first, but also almost to lose reporting it at all. But Nancy's fender bender may be the first clue in helping her solve Lambert's murder, which she doesn't think was committed by Denning. Even without any solid evidence to support her intuition, Nancy coerces her father, renowned lawyer Carson Drew, to defend Denning while Nancy, with her bumbling next door neighbor, Ted Nickerson, search for evidence to support her intuition. In Nancy and Ted's search, the man with the funny ear just happens always to be around. Nancy also uses her reporter status to flush out who she thinks is the real killer.—Huggo