The Dante Game: A Homer Kelly Mystery [Mass Market Paperback]

Jane Langton (Author)

Book Description

Series: Homer Kelly Mystery | Publication Date: June 1, 1992

The Dante Game takes Homer Kelly to magnificent, mysterious Florence, where he finds himself entangled in a mystery of murdered lovers, the disappearance of a star pupil, and a heroin ring shut down by the Pope's antidrug campaign.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In another of her civilized, literary mysteries, Langton ( Emily Dickinson Is Dead ) sends professor Homer Kelly, previously at work in New England academic and historical settings, to teach at an American school in a crumbling villa in Florence, Italy. With characteristic wit (and pen-and-ink illustrations), Langton creates a love song to the architectural and cultural richness of Florence as she centers her plot around the pope's visit to a Florentine cathedral. When the villa's adulterous chambermaid and gardener are killed and a ravishingly beautiful student goes missing, Kelly is drawn into a case with ramifications reaching far beyond the concerns of the school's students and staff. One of the latter, a professor of Dante who has a criminal record in Massachusetts, finds that the literary scavenger hunt--"the Dante game"--he has devised for his class is being used to implicate the Americans in crimes occurring all over the city. The game elegantly ties together a mystery that transports readers to a passionate, sun-drenched world where classical statues turn a blind eye on murders perpetrated at their feet. (Mar.)note pub date change
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The latest Homer Kelly mystery unfolds in Italy, where he joins the faculty of the newly formed American School of Florentine Studies. As students and professors read their way through Dante's Divine Comedy , they and the author draw parallels to modern-day Florence, where a bank official (and secret heroin smuggler) plots to assassinate the anti-drug-crusading Pope, using a Beatrice-like student as hostage. After three murders at the school, Homer and a friend investigate. The novel's strolling pace accelerates only near the very end, but there is adequate amusement for Langton or Dante fans, or both.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140138870
• ISBN-13: 978-0140138870
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,679,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I've written an awful lot of books. There are eleven for middle-aged children, mostly fantasies. The ones that have hung around the longest are "The Diamond in the Window" and "The Fledgling." The seventh in the series called "The Hall Family Chronicles" came out last spring, "The Mysterious Circus," and I've just finished writing an eighth, "The Dragon Tree."

All eighteen mysteries for adults have the same protagonists, Homer and Mary Kelly. Mary is the sensible one, but I confess I like Homer's rhapsodic flights of fancy. Most of their adventures happen in Massachusetts, but I've also sent them to farflung places I wanted to visit myself, like Florence, Oxford and Venice. Most of the novels are illustrated with my own drawings, but "The Escher Twist" has ten prints by the mysterious Dutch artist M. C. Escher, and the two historical mysteries are illustrated with nineteenth-century photographs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a fun read, November 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dante Game: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

I had just returned from Florence when I started _The Dante Game_ and it proved extremely helpful in easing the pangs of withdrawal. All the place descriptions and the drawings were exactly as I'd just experienced. The front flyleaf had an illustration of the street scene that was the exact view from my pensione window. And the story itself was fun and fast-paced. I do wish the characters had more depth, however. A lot was said about their looks (but no pictures, which I thought odd considering there were illustrations of all the sights they visited, so why not include sketches of the people, when their descriptions were just as prominent in the book) and a lot was expected to be gleaned from these descriptions, especially the near saintliness of the stunning woman at the center of it all and the unlikability of the oafish fat boy, which was just a tad too convenient, I thought, and not especially fair. But this makes it sound as if I didn't like the story, which I did. Also, I can't say enough about the beautiful illustrations of Florence's views. I sighed at the sight of each one.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-plotted, great setting, October 19, 1999

By 

PamR "readyreading" (Oak Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dante Game: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

I haven't read the rest of the series, but enjoyed this one. Very well-plotted. If you're lucky enough to be in Florence when you read it, you'll enjoy all the references to locations. It works well, and whetted my appetite for more by this author.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars where was the mystery?!, August 5, 2002

By 

Gordon L. fuglie (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dante Game (Homer Kelly Mystery) (Hardcover)

Pretty much of the story's outcome is evident before the reader is half way through the book. There is really only one "surprise" at the ending and I felt that it got wrapped up a little too neatly and quickly. There is some suspense, but it builds in choppy intervals and deflates, only to be pumped up again.

A number of ideas and characters didn't really go anywhere. The idea of a bumbling American academic involved in uncovering a major criminal conspiracy has much potential, but here Homer Kelly is a regular annoyance and the book could've done without him. Further, Julia's discovery of herself in Florence and in captivity could've have also thickened the stew and deepened her character, but instead Langton has her do a "Patty Hearst turn" and then repent - so we're told. She gets a hubby and a kid at the end but we understand little of her entry into redeeming domesticity.

The best character in the novel is the city of Florence, and Langton reaches genuine literary heights at the close of the book with her philosophical musings on the city and its history. There are also some amusing motifs, one being the portrayal of romantically-inclined, college-age students and their "like, you know" indifference to Florence's splendid cultural treasures. Methinks Langton may have once done an unsatisfying stint in a "study abroad" program.

The Dante Game is likely to satisfy those about to travel to Florence or who have just returned. Mystery buffs are better advised to read the classics: P.D. James, Martha Grimes. etc.