Steeplechase
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
With “clever storytelling” shifting between past and present, the final Homer Kelly mystery has the scholar/sleuth solving the puzzle of a missing church (Booklist).
Somehow, against all odds, Homer Kelly has become famous. After decades toiling in academic obscurity, the Harvard professor has a book on the bestseller list. To capitalize on his sudden fame, Homer’s editor demands another book, and fast. Homer is working on Steeplechase, a tour of churches in and around his little patch of Massachusetts, and at his editor’s request he goes searching for some ancient gossip to spice up his new work. What he finds is a baffling Reconstruction-era mystery. Hot-air balloons, nursery rhymes, and the great chestnut tree in the village of Nashoba all form part of Homer’s ancestors’ thrilling story. As the tale shifts between 1868 and the present day, a picture emerges of a small-town Massachusetts that’s hardly changed, and a secret which, if it weren’t for Homer, may have stayed buried for all time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Langton's 18th Homer Kelly mystery (after 2003's The Deserter), the Harvard professor and sometime sleuth resolves to spice up Steeplechase, the book about Massachusetts churches he's writing, with a scandal. To that end, he and wife Mary piece together the story of a conflict between two 19th-century clergymen in fictional Nashoba, Mass., involving an ancient chestnut tree. Past and present play out in alternating sections. Period photos give faces to many of the characters, and Langton's own drawings add a touch of whimsy. The overall effect is like that of an antique album, albeit a somewhat fractured one. Similarly, the contrast of grim drama (in the person of disfigured Civil War veteran James Shaw) with comedy (in the figures of the Spratt brothers, who fly a hot-air balloon) gives an ambiguous, Edward Goreyesque feel to the proceedings. Absent is the tension of Langton's previous books, and even to call this disjointed tale a mystery would be a little generous. Still, fans will delight in her idiosyncratic characters and humor.
