A Mystery for Thoreau [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Kin Platt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2008

Sixteen-year-old Oliver Puckle, news gatherer for the Concord Freeman in the summer of 1846, has his work cut out for him when word arrives of a gruesome murder at Walden Pond. It seems the only citizen who is not a suspect is the poetphilosopher Henry David Thoreau, who spent the night locked in the local jail for refusing to pay his poll tax. As Oliver leads the charge to unravel the mystery, he has much to learn from his colorful neighbors – among them Ralph Waldo Emerson and a feisty teenage Louisa May Alcott – but unexpectedly it is the recluse Thoreau himself who provides particular help to the investigation.

This posthumously published novel, set in the famously literary town of Concord, Massachusetts, is rich with intrigue and witty detail and features a foreword by the author’s son.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up—Set in Concord, MA, in 1886, this mystery centers around Oliver Puckle, a 16-year-old reporter who gathers news for his uncle's paper. When the body of an elderly community member is discovered near Henry David Thoureau's cottage at Walden Pond, Oliver is determined to solve the crime. He soon surmises that the murder is related to the recent arrival of an attractive young woman, who has since gone missing. Although Thoreau, an acquaintance of the narrator's, uses his knowledge of the woods to help interpret clues, he is more a decorative overlay than an integral character in the whodunit. The same can be said of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott, who both make cameo appearances at the newspaper office. A foreword by the author's son recounts Platt's career and explains how this book was found among his papers and published posthumously. Taken as a whole, the novel seems sketchily researched and hastily thrown together-more a work in progress than a completed manuscript.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY
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From Booklist

Written in a discursive nineteenth-century style and populated with familiar (to the well-read, at least) historical figures, this posthumously published murder mystery showcases Platt’s ability to mix melodrama with tongue-in-cheek humor. When a mysterious, beautiful young visitor goes missing and a local madwoman is found dead on the doorstep of Henry Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, teenage journalist Oliver Puckle launches a frantic investigation. The crime and its solution are, however, only rudimentary insertions into a tale that is really about 1846 Concord, its environs, and its prominent citizens. Along the way Oliver encounters the godlike Ralph Waldo Emerson, advises 14-year-old tomboy Louisa May Alcott to try writing prose instead of poetry, has frank discussions about racial inequalities (in one case the n-word is used, though in the context of historical dialect) and repeatedly interviews the otherworldly Thoreau—who speaks only in direct quotes taken from his journals and other writings. If not quite another Ghost of Hellsfire Street (but then, what is?), this still sheds amusing sidelight on some major people and places in our country’s literary landscape. Grades 5-8. --John Peters

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 1st edition (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374353379
• ISBN-13: 978-0374353377
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,365,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars YA historical fiction set in Transcendental Concord, November 10, 2008

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Mystery for Thoreau (Hardcover)

Writer Kin Platt (1911-2003) was known for a variety of work in his time, and he even won an Edgar Award in 1967 for Best Juvenile Mystery (for "Sinbad and Me"). After his death, his son Christopher sifted through a file of unpublished manuscripts and found this text. Thus can we have a "new" release that is technically posthumous.

The tale is told by Oliver Puckle, a young journalist who works for the Concord Freeman, the newspaper serving Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid-1800s. We learn quite a bit about the town through Oliver's eyes, since he's been trained to pay attention to details. We can also understand his youthful emotional state when he becomes smitten with Margaret Roberts, a lovely woman newly arrived from Boston. But all is not idyllic here. When a local resident is murdered, Oliver wants to get to the bottom of the crime and to also find Miss Roberts, who has seemingly disappeared altogether. Oliver enlists the help of sheriff Sam Staples and of naturalist Henry David Thoreau, since the events happened near the latter's Walden Pond house. At the same time, we know that Thoreau cannot possibly be linked to the tragedy directly because when it happened, he was sitting in jail for deliberate non-payment of the state poll tax. Eventually the truth surfaces, and life resumes a normal pace. And Thoreau returns to the pond.

Platt obviously did his homework before writing this historical YA novel. The setting has more historical accuracy than can be seen in some nonfiction books published in recent years. That's not to say that a few quirks didn't find their way onto the pages. Purists and native New Englanders might bristle at the author's use of the term "town square" for what is decidedly a quintessential "common." And Thoreau's mother shouldn't claim that she pays her own poll tax, when those bills were issued only to the adult males living in the Commonwealth.

Still, "A Mystery for Thoreau" weaves an intriguing storyline. Teen readers may be nudged to learn more about some of the famous folk who make cameos here -- Thoreau, yes, but also Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott. This is a worthwhile read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Kin Platt great, October 7, 2008

By 

Krista K. Jordan "Curiosity Buff" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Mystery for Thoreau (Hardcover)

This is yet another great Kin Platt book. Young adult fiction at its best. Now they just need to do a re-printing of Sinbad and Me!

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent historical novel, December 29, 2011

By 

Ja - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Mystery for Thoreau (Hardcover)

Henry David Thoreau is a subtle presence as a detective with his Sherlock Holmes like deductive observations in this easy to read novel. I would like to have seen more of Thoreau in this fictional setting, but he is portrayed as a historically accurate character.