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Nancy keeps finding new places to explore with us; this time, she's dropped from the Pacific Northwest to the wilds of Arizona to meet Bess and George at their aunt and uncle's ranch. But of course, Bess and George won't be there (who else would she talk to on the phone if they actually appeared in one of these mysteries?) — a sequence of freaky weather and plane problems keep them from arriving until the case is solved.

Even without Bess and George, she'll still have Aunt Bet and Uncle Ed to stay with … but he's bitten by a rattler in their bedroom the night before Nancy arrives, so Bet and Ed are stuck at the hospital for the duration. That leaves a short cast of chief suspects — ranch foreman Dave, a hunk who's real handy with chicken wire; Tex, the cantankerous horse wrangler; Shorty, the ranch cook; and Mary, who runs the tourist shop down the way. There is also a gang of bank robbers from Denver lurking in the distance — could they be responsible for all the trouble?

The trouble starts with the rattlesnake in Ed's bedroom, but the snake doesn't appear until a ghostly horse races past the ranch, shining in the midnight darkness. Nancy misses this first visitation, but she's there the next night, when its appearance coincides with the pumphouse pipe exploding, and the third night, when the ranch's main powerline shorts out. She'd better figure out what's causing the problem before the whole ranch burns down over their heads.

There are plenty of modern-day secrets to uncover, but her snooping also reveals the sad story of Frances Humber, her robber love, Dirk Valentine, and her sheriff father, Meryl Humber, who captured Dirk and delivered him to be hung. Frances never forgave her father and left home forever, leaving behind the treasure that Dirk had cleverly hidden for her. With Dirk and Frances gone, the treasure is still waiting for someone as clever as Dirk to find it.

There are other possible motives for persuading Aunt Bet and Uncle Ed to abandon their ranch, wrapped up in the secrets Nancy discovers, so Shadow Ranch is never short on mystery. In fact, as mysteries go, this case is one of the best. It's got plenty of puzzles, suspicious activity, sidetrails to investigate and interesting characters, both current and past. (We only meet Charleena Purcell, historical romance writer extraordinaire, over the phone, which is probably just as well.)

As always, it also has plenty of interesting historical and cultural information that you have to research, but this time, it seems to have glossed over the fact that Arizona was part of Mexico until about 1850 and that it didn't become a state until after 1900. The 19th century life it portrays is not real likely, but it still makes for a good tale.

On the other hand, you learn more than enough about local vegetation — Roumanian Rainbows, Northern Lights, Golden Queens — plus knitting, cattle brands, arrowheads and more. Oh! And horses — you learn lots about horses.

The puzzles are among the best in the series and are consistently challenging. Only a couple left us asking "what does this have to do with anything?" Most took thought, and a couple occupied us for almost an hour each. (You also come across arrowheads from time to time, and being experienced sleuths, we picked up all that we could find. By the time we needed them, we had nine of the 10, but the 10th proved a real challenge. We finally had to consult the walkthrough to find it, only to be told that we only had to deliver nine of the 10 after all. Brief pause to bang heads on desk.)

While the interface is still very familiar, there are a few significant changes. Most are improvements, but we're still not sure about withholding Nancy's tasklist. What are we talking about? In the last several cases, Nancy has kept a journal with notes on what she's discovered and a tasklist of what she needs to do next. Anytime we were stuck, we could check the tasklist to see what we were forgetting or overlooking. (Of course, we always play at Senior Detective level; Junior Detective is beneath us.) Imagine our surprise the first time we went to the tasklist to find, "This is where I usually keep my To Do list. But since I'm a Senior Detective, I'm going to solve this mystery without it." Suddenly, the online walkthroughs became much more important again!

The other major change is in inventory management. Rather than keeping the inventory on the screen (which took up valuable visual space), you now click the inventory button to open it. And once it's open, more of your inventory is visible, so there's less awkward scrolling up and down. However, it makes for an overly intricate sequence of click (open inventory), click (select something in inventory), click (close inventory), click (use item), click (open inventory), click (replace item), click (close inventory). And if you have to use one inventory item on another (for example, if you have to use the key to open the chest), you have to get the chest, then reopen the inventory to get the key. And the scrolling system for the inventory (in fact, for all of the open windows) is so last century. With the constant improvements that Her Interactive are making, we're confident that these will be improved, as well.

One other quick note — lately, the games have dropped day/night distinctions completely. However, the phantom horse has to appear at night, so the game takes breaks for nighttime activities. This feels much more realistic than the everlasting days of recent games.

The Secret of Shadow Ranch stands out as perhaps the best in the series. The new interface is better, despite some awkwardness. Evie still prefers the adventure of Treasure in the Royal Tower, and Dad likes all the Maya lore and mythology in Secret of the Scarlet Hand, but we both agree that Shadow Ranch is a lot of fun. If they're all this much fun, we'll keep playing them forever — and next time, we leave the States for Merry Olde England!