[2] Laura Pendleton rescues Nancy Drew and her friend Helen, who can't swim, when their rowboat capsizes during a sudden, severe storm on Moon Lake.

Mr. Aborn seems somewhat boorish to the River Heights girls, and Nancy, upon returning home, receives a phone call from Laura, who is desperate to escape from her "evil" guardian.

The plot is similar, but the mystery takes longer to develop; unusual, in that revised versions of Nancy Drew typically reduce detail and speed up the action.

Nancy is called home to aid injured Hannah Gruen; as in the original, she encounters a tree on the road, but this time a brother and sister appear, and help her.

Nancy tackles this by dressing more maturely (the first time she implements an appearance change to sleuth in the series chronology) and going door-to-door for charity as a ruse to meet the suspects.

The rest of the mystery unfolds similarly to the 1930 edition, although Nancy fixes Laura up on a date with her friend Don Cameron, and she goes to investigate the Aborn lake house under the ruse of being on vacation back at the same hotel from the opening chapters.

A feature fixture that appears vaguely in other volumes is introduced here: Nancy carries a suitcase in her trunk that contains clothing appropriate for outdoor wear, an evening dress with accessories, and swimwear, plus cosmetics, etc.

A part of this book, the Road Construction sign and trying to cross the bridge with planks, was seen in the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew episode, "The Mystery of the Diamond Triangle".