Jane Langton

A mysterious poem and a series of dreams compel young Edward and Eleanor to search for Prince Krishna's treasure.

The Diamond in the Window

Georgie's fondest hope, to be able to fly, is fleetingly fulfilled when she is befriended by a Canada goose.

The Fledgling

Emily Dickinson

Nancy Ekholm Burkert

A tribute to the American poet includes eighty poems and numerous drawings which reveal the motifs, images, and atmosphere of Emily Dickinson's world

Acts of Light

When Eddy Hall receives five cards for his stereoscope, he and his sister, Eleanor, can't wait to see what exotic places they reveal maybe Stonehenge, or a centuries-old European cathedral. But instead, when they look through the stereoscope, Eddy and Eleanor see some very strange things. An odd-looking rope hangs from the sky down into every picture. A marmalade coloured cat that looks suspiciously like Herm, the family cat, also appears. And one picture looks like the front hall of their very own house! The images seem to be almost real, not just three-dimensional illusions. All it will take is one little tug on that rope to find out for sure ....

The Astonishing Stereoscope

Murder at Gettysburg

The Deserter

Erik Blegvad

The Swing in the Summerhouse (Hall Family Chronicles, Book 2)

Eddy receives a mysterious gift from India, an old-fashioned bike that transports its rider through time.

The Time Bike

Thoreau, Emerson, and the Alcotts are discovered to have done more than they think, two people show up dead, and Lt.-Det., Emerson scholar, Homer Kelly is there

The Transcendental Murder

Ex-detective Homer Kelly is called in to investigate pranks at the Gardner Museum. But when a wealthy art patron is murdered, the seemingly harmless becomes deadly serious.

A Novel of Suspense

Murder at the Gardner

Edgar Award Finalist: Murder strikes the Massachusetts hometown of a literary icon, and a scholarly sleuth investigates, in a “remarkable” mystery series (Booklist). Although she spent her life withdrawn from the people of Amherst, Massachusetts, every man, woman, and English professor in this small university town claims ownership of poet Emily Dickinson. They give tours in her house, lay flowers on her grave, and now, as the hundredth anniversary of her death approaches, they organize festivals in her name. Dickinson scholar Owen Kraznik has just been railroaded into organizing the festival when Amherst starts to burn. As the fire consumes a fourteen-story university dormitory, transcendentalist scholar and occasional sleuth Homer Kelly considers that it may have been set on purpose. Two students die in the blaze, but neither was the arsonist’s target. Emily Dickinson wrote countless poems on the nature of mortality, but before Amherst can celebrate her words, death will leap off the page.

Emily Dickinson Is Dead

A hunt for a missing art lover engages Homer in a perplexing mystery Leonard Sheldrake knows little about Frieda except that he loves her. A Harvard professor and admirer of the bizarre engravings of M. C. Escher, Leonard is visiting a Cambridge exhibition of the artist’s work when he meets Frieda and falls instantly in love. As they trade remarks about the artwork, he learns a few brief things about her. Though young, she is a widow, an orphan, and has a terrible secret in her past. It is only after she vanishes that he realizes he didn’t even learn her last name. Leonard enlists fellow professor Homer Kelly, the amateur sleuth, to help find this beguiling young widow. But as they comb Cambridge for the woman in the green coat, Homer and his friend find themselves slipping into a mysterious labyrinth, whose treacherous dimensions are as impossible to grasp as anything dreamed up by the late, great M. C. Escher himself.

The Escher Twist

Two hundred years after Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, a serial killer stalks Monticello Thomas Jefferson is in trouble. Two centuries after he became America’s third President, the nation’s historians have ganged up on him, intent on shattering the reputation of a man they once idolized. It’s Fern Fisher’s job to set the record straight. A hotshot young historian, she has been hired by the people at Monticello to repair Jefferson’s tattered reputation. If she isn’t careful, she could get her throat slit for her troubles. In the run-up to the celebration of Jefferson’s bicentennial, a killer prowls the area around the President’s historic home, brutally murdering any young women he can find. Harvard professor and casual sleuth Homer Kelly is in Monticello for the festivities, and is eager to reconnect with Fern, a former student. While Fern fights Jefferson’s character assassination, Homer tries to keep her safe from murder of a more literal kind.

Murder at Monticello

Homer and his wife fight to restore the besmirched legacy of a long-dead relative. Homer and Mary Kelly have wandered through Harvard University's Memorial Hall dozens of times, but never have they lingered over the long list of alumni who died for the Union during the Civil War. One afternoon, the setting sun casts its light on the name of Seth Morgan, Mary's disgraced great-great-grandfather. She knows little of her ancestor's life, for family lore holds that he was a deserter, and a blight on the Morgan name. But as she and her husband dig into the dead man's story, they find something astonishing. The mystery deepens as the story shifts from past to present. Even in 1863 it was difficult to know just what happened on the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg, but no matter what it takes, Homer and Mary will find truth, and restore the honor of a man who died fighting for his country.

Visiting Oxford, the Harvard professor/sleuth gets a crash course in Darwin’s survival of the fittest in a high-spirited whodunit that’s “vintage Langton” (Booklist). William Dubchick is too keen a student of the writings of Charles Darwin to not see that the world of biology has evolved past him. Decades ago, he was the foremost mind in Oxford University’s department of natural sciences, but as the field’s focus narrowed to the microscopic level he became nothing more than a gray-haired, cantankerous relic. He has a small fiefdom, manned by Helen Farfrae, a committed disciple who, Dubchick is annoyed to learn, someone is trying to kill. It is into this world that Homer Kelly, Emersonian scholar and part-time sleuth, comes to spend a semester lecturing. Though expecting a vacation, he finds Oxford to be a swamp of theft, fraud, and murder. Besides the attempts on Farfrae’s life, he must reckon with a murdered priest, the theft of a dodo’s portrait, and suspicious claims that long-lost Darwinian artifacts have been found. With an academic climate like this, it’s amazing that any of the Oxford dons live to see tenure.

Dead as a Dodo

Prompted by his wife, Mary, Harvard scholar/sleuth Homer Kelly looks into the suspicious death of a folk singer in this “enormously appealing” mystery (Publishers Weekly). Each year, the beautiful Sarah Bailey marks the winter solstice by organizing a pageant of drama and song for the citizens of Harvard University. Last year, the star of the show was Henry Shady, an Appalachian folk singer whose homespun charm won the eye of every young woman in Cambridge. On the eve of this year’s Revels, the singer is struck down in the street by an SUV driven by Sarah’s husband. The police dismiss it as a freak accident, but Mary Kelly, who witnessed the singer’s death, is not so sure. Her husband, Harvard professor and sometime sleuth Homer, dismisses her suspicion. But when more of the revelers suffer untimely deaths, Homer sees a pattern. Winter has gripped Cambridge, and Sarah’s husband may have been seized with murderous jealousy.

Murder at the Revels

The Shortest Day

A murder on the ground of Jefferson's mansion at Monticello leads history buff Homer Kelly on a search for Tom Dean, a young man seen trespassing on the property, who has become the prime suspect in the killings of several local women.

A Homer Kelly Mystery

In Florence, scholar/sleuth Homer Kelly must foil a plot to kill the Pope in a “voluptuously detailed” mystery in which Langton’s “exuberant wit runs riot” (The New York Times Book Review). When the Pope issues a sweeping edict calling for a yearlong war on drugs, no one is more surprised than the Vatican to find the campaign a success. In every Catholic corner of the world, young people throw down their needles to pick up crosses. In Florence, thousands of them converge on the Duomo to thank Christ for their newfound commitment to sobriety. Nearly everyone is relieved by this development—save for Leonardo Bindo, banker and druglord. To get his business back on track, he seizes upon a simple plan: Kill the Pope. Standing in his way is Homer Kelly, transcendentalist scholar and occasional detective. In Florence to teach at a new international university, Homer stumbles on Bindo’s scheme while investigating the disappearance of a beautiful young student. His Italian may be lousy, but Homer is the only man who can save Italy from itself.

The Dante Game

After a bomb blast in Harvard's Memorial Hall and the discovery of a headless body, obviously belonging to unconventional and popular Professor Hamilton Dow, dauntless detective Homer Kelly, on campus at the time, takes charge of an investigation

The Memorial Hall Murder

Homer investigates the violent deaths of a beautiful stage manager’s admirers Each year, the beautiful Sarah Bailey marks the winter solstice by organizing a pageant of drama and song for the citizens of Harvard University. Last year, the star of the show was Henry Shady, an Appalachian folk singer whose homespun charm won the eye of every young woman in Cambridge. On the eve of this year’s Revels, the singer is struck down in the street by an SUV driven by Sarah’s husband. The police dismiss it as a freak accident, but Mary Kelly, who witnessed the singer’s death, is not so sure. Her husband, Harvard professor and sometime sleuth Homer, dismisses her suspicion. But when more of the revelers suffer untimely deaths, Homer sees a pattern. Winter has gripped Cambridge, and Sarah’s husband may have been seized with murderous jealousy.

Jane Langton

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