Customer Reviews

Dead As a Dodo (A Homer Kelly Mystery)

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As if to take on the style of the British mysteries, Ms. Langton paces the plot fairly slowly, picking up speed toward the middle of the book. Less formulaic than Agatha Christie, Ms. Langton's book is more along the lines of P.D. James. Her references to Darwinian fact and fiction are formidable, and makes several pages more than simply "light reading." However, the scientific references and theological postulations never become tedious and in fact provide a lovely intellectual backdrop for a somewhat boring set of murders.

For those who enjoy something more than plot, this mystery is highly recommended. Anyone who has been to Oxford will most definitely enjoy Ms. Langton's thorough and fanciful descriptions.

Homer Kelly is as eccentric as he is brilliant, making for an excellent protagonist. However, some of the other characters are lacking in development which leads to a miniscule disappointment in reading the book. Otherwise, a delightfully well-written work.

This story really grew on me, taking me longer to read and ponder than I had expected. It is a leisurely story told in crisply short chapters. It begins as a rather fusty sabbatical visit to Oxford, England, by Harvard professors Homer and Mary Kelly (Langton's series characters), and turns into an enthusiastical meld of Alice in Wonderland and Darwinian evolution, especially in a climactic dream sequence! There are hidden depths to the situations and academic theories juxtaposed here. The eventual murders are almost beside the point. The joy in intellectual disputation herein made me not really worried for anyone. For a professor of English, Homer is quite a scientist, an experimenter, and not in the least PC and post-modern like his ilk. While rarely laugh-out-loud funny, Langton definitely has an amusingly light touch and a bit of satire. The book is illustrated with the author's jaunty sketches of Oxford places. I suspect that any knowledge of Lewis Carroll, Darwin, and Oxford will increase the pleasure of the reader still further.

Dead as a Dodo is one of the best and most refreshingly original mysteries in the distinguished Homer and Mary Kelly series.

Jane Langton is well known for her mystery series featuring Homer and Mary Kelly (who both lecture at Harvard). In these books, she always manages to combine new perspectives on important 19th century thinkers by putting their ideas into today's context. The mysteries are illuminated by plots that investigate those philosophies, drawings by Ms. Langton of the surroundings, and intense local research into the physical surroundings. While her works in the past have mostly focused on Massachusetts, Dead as Dodo takes the Kellys across the pond to Oxford for a guest lectureship. The change of venue is a good one for fans of her work.

Oxford is rich ground for intellectual explorations. The book does a marvelous job of bringing Darwin's theory of evolution into the context of modern life and its meaning for spiritual beliefs. At the same time, Ms. Langton uses Lewis Carroll as a counterfoil with quotes and images from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

As always, Ms. Langton invents few facts, but does brilliantly extrapolate from what she finds on hand to see plot and story possibilities that would escape most visitors to the same environs. (When she wrote about Walden Pond, I could not believe that I was unaware of so many details . . . until I drove out to check.)

One of Ms. Langton's on-going themes in the series is how much humans fail to notice that is right under their noses. This book is one of the best at developing that theme.

While some would find sections of these mysteries a bit slow, Dead as a Dodo was the best paced mystery by Ms. Langton in years. I found myself enjoying every nuance on each page.

The mystery itself (like most of her mysteries) is not so terribly difficult to solve. The characters are remarkably rich and interesting ones, though, and will draw and keep your attention throughout.

After you finish this story, I suggest that you spend some time discussing what the theory of evolution means for how you think about the way life operates. Many of the concepts from The Origin of Species have become so deeply imbedded in modern thought that we are unaware of the assumptions we make. I found that this book allowed me to revisit those assumptions and to change many of them which I have held for many years.

For example, what does it mean that humans have vast sections of their brains that are unused? Why would we evolve this way? While no one can know for sure, it is certainly a fascinating question.

Adapt to the circumstances around you to thrive . . . or find yourself being like a fish out of water!