Steeplechase: A Homer Kelly Mystery [Paperback]

Jane Langton (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur (2005)
• ASIN: B000OTIGYY
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,357,631 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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars entertaining intelligent mystery, October 25, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steeplechase: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Homer Kelly Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Harvard Professor Homer Kelly has the New York Times number one nonfiction seller, Hen & Chicks. His editor demands he write a follow-up immediately so he can stay on top while the iron is hot. Homer works on his next tome Steeplechase, a look at the historical churches of New England. His wife Mary persuades him to begin the treks starting in Concord and eventually nearby Nashoba. They will find post Civil War aerial photos by the Pratt brothers that showcase a church steeple and a great chestnut tree in Nashoba; while the steeple seems to have vanished without any references besides the pictures, the tree remains standing today.

In 1868 Nashoba, disfigured veteran James Jackson Shaw comes home wanting to simply die. He refuses to see any of his friends and barely tolerates the care of his wife Isabelle and his in-laws including Reverend and Mrs. Gideon. At the same time, Eben Fleet wants Isabelle as his while Ella Viles desires Eben. These disjointed relationships will collide near the Nashoba Chestnut tree that magnificently stands by the First Parrish Church.

In the shadows of Longfellow, STEEPLECHASE alternates chapters so that the audience sees the real events of 1868 vs. the Kelly interpretation of those same activities. This makes for an intriguing historiographic look at how each generation re-interprets the past. Though the 1868 saga is more gripping than the current times fans of a thought provoking, yet very entertaining intelligent mystery will appreciate the latest Homer Kelly thriller.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe the books in this series should be called Historical Mysteries ..., December 26, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: Steeplechase: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Homer Kelly Mysteries) (Hardcover)

... because Homer and Mary Kelly are always delving into interesting stories from the past. This time, Homer is working on a book about church steeples found in and around Concord, Massachusetts. His editor wants him to uncover titillating scandals in the process, but Homer isn't finding many. In alternate chapters, we drop back to 1868, where a dispute between two ministers and their families is brewing in Nashoba, not far from Concord. It begins with a chestnut tree and ends in the division of one congregation into two. Readers are encouraged to stick with the unfolding of the historical text; it takes a commitment of time to figure out which characters to focus on. Gradually we see that what happened back then is exactly what Homer Kelly was looking for all along. Perhaps the savviest of readers will even understand the symbolism of wounded soldier James Shaw's interest in Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." We're given a lot to digest in these pages.

Langton is good at several things here: showing single events from the perspective of multiple characters' views, and making fiction seem like nonfiction. By the end of the book, I was so curious about the historical revelation that I was ready to drive along Route 2A in search of a church-turned-pizza parlor in Nashoba. Alas, my search would have been fruitless, for not only did the author fabricate the historical episode unveiled in "Steeplechase," she also placed it in a fictional town. I wanted it all to be true!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The past is a mystery, July 12, 2006

By 

Julia John - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steeplechase: A Homer Kelly Mystery (Homer Kelly Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Jane Langton has tapped in to a great theme: that the past is itself a mystery. We can never truly know what happened during any historical event, large or small, global or personal. And the "truth" is relative and subjective.

Bouncing back and forth between 1868 and the present heightened the suspense, and raised a philosophical question: does it matter how a past event actually happened? If it is lost in the mists of time due to misplaced evidence, burned records, faded photos, then hasn't the event itself changed in some way? History only exists in our collective recorded memory. And that is a fluid existence indeed, subject to new findings, new biases, and the inevitable decay and loss of all evidence.

Homer and Mary can only uncover what is there to be found. The rest they attempt to fill in with their considerable insight into human nature. I appreciate their practicality. Mysteries of dirty deeds in church cloisters may be fascinating, but these two never ignore lunch, or love, or their fellow humans in the here and now. Great role models, since the here and now is all we have, after all.