Dark Nantucket Noon [Hardcover]

Jane Langton (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (1975)
• ASIN: B000GE1DQU
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,608,953 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

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional, literate mystery, July 22, 2002

By 

Alicia K. Ahlvers "alibrarian" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Nantucket Noon: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

Homer Kelly has come to Nantucket to complete his study of the men who sailed with Melville. When poetess, Katherine Clark, is arrested for the murder of her ex-lover's beautiful new wife, Homer is asked to help find the real murderer. As he investigates, it turns out that the beautiful new wife, Helen Boatwright Green was keeping secrets that someone would kill to protect. When you read some of her descriptions, especially those involving the natural world, there is a lovely moment of recognition, of her descriptions being exactly right. This is the second in her Homer and Mary Kelly series and is considered to be her best novel by many critics.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weak Book by Good Author, August 3, 2000

By 

Gilbert Gandenberger (Lincoln, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Nantucket Noon: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

Jane Langton's series of Homer Kelly mysteries is excellent; this book is weak. The characters are thin, the plot is disappointing, the atmosphere lacks her usual charm. Langton's a very enjoyable writer, but this book does not demonstrate it.

If you've read and enjoyed the others, you'll probably want to read this to complete the series. If you haven't read any of her books yet, pick a different one.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A mystery based on an incredible coincidence disappoints, June 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dark Nantucket Noon: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

Langton's picture of Nantucket is vaguely matching my own recent memories, although she succeeds in making it duller than it was for me. More than that, the story begins with a scene that is explained as an incredible coincidence pointing to our heroine as the murderer. I kept thinking, "No, this is a device to mislead me" but it was not the clever intricacy I'd been waiting for. It was just plain silliness. This is not just a small problem; this is the kind of mystery in which one must suspend commonsense. Some people can accept that fantasyland escapism. For them I've got a great bridge to Brooklyn cheap.