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Murder at the Gardner: A Novel of Suspense
  

Murder at the Gardner: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

by Jane Langton (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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From Publishers Weekly

Within the palatial walls of Boston's Gardner Museum, paintings by Botticelli and Titian shed artistic light on a hodgepodge of lesser collectibles, all forever fixed in place as decreed by the inflexible terms of Isabella Stewart Gardner's will, which demands that the whole collection be auctioned off should any changes or unwelcome disturbances occur. The museum's very boyish director, Titus Moon, turns a blind eye to such pranks as tadpoles in the courtyard fountain and ghostly music in the galleries, but even he is appalled when a particularly awful benefactor meets an untimely end. Langton (Good and Dead) tucks her tongue firmly in cheek before treating readers to a wild and wholly enjoyable ride on the trail of the dangerous trickster. Although a bit light on motive and suspense, this exceedingly charming mystery more than makes up its weight in laughs called down upon the antics of one hapless character after the nextexuberant Polly, who gallumphs through cataloguing chores, wise and wily Catherine Rule, and the ubiquitous Mrs. Garboyle, who seems to be running Boston single-handedly from her basement apartment. Elegant line drawings by the author accompany the text.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Ingram

Tadpoles in the fountain lead to murder in the corridor of Boston's IsabellaStewart Gardner Museum. The trustees call in Homer Kelly, ex-cop and Harvardlecturer, to solve the case. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2.0 out of 5 stars Predictable mystery, Oct 14 2002
This review is from: Murder At The Gardner (Paperback)
I picked this book up because I love both Boston and the Garder Museum. The author has clearly done her research. Unfortunately, it shows a bit too much. I read it three days after I visited the Gardner; I found myself wishing I'd read it before, so that I could bring it along to use as a guidebook. It sometimes felt as though the exposition on how Wonderful and Fabulous the Gardner Museum is (which it is) and where the Vermeer is placed (which I'm sure is correct) got in the way of the plot.

I should also say that I'm not a big fan of mystery novels where the killer is revealed early on. This was not a tightly-wound psychological mystery, so I REALLY wasn't a fan of the fact that the reader was more or less told who the killer was long, LONG before the conclusion of the book. It was a procedural. And I was thinking, "Okay, I know who did it, get to the point already."

That was a general problem with a lot of the plot-- things were a little bit too telegraphed for my taste, although I think that's a matter of personal preference. We're told who is in love with who, and we're given minor characters that are more stereotypes than anything else. When their stereotypical qualities start having a bearing on the plot, it irritates me, since these qualities are those that are not possessed by normal people out in the real world. Similarly, a bequest figures heavily in the book, and a big part of it is that no one knows what the bequest really will be. I-- let's just say I found myself wondering about whether or not the denoument of that plotline would ever have been played out in an actual museum.

On the other hand, I was really really anxious by one of the climactic moments of the book, which has more to do with the Gardner than the mystery, although a little of both. I was biting-my-nails anxious, even though I knew that the scene didn't really happen in the Real Life History of the Gardner. I love that museum, I really do. And certainly the book provides a nice overview of the place and its history and its eccentric but well-intentioned founder.

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5.0 out of 5 stars lyrical and involving, Sep 12 2002
By Andrew Barss "andybarss" (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Murder At The Gardner (Paperback)
Jane Langton's mystery novels always present a detailed and engrossing picture of a small, intricately structured world and the people in it (here, the Gardner Museum in Boston). Her writing style is hard to describe -- it's seemingly effortless, yet lyrical at the same time, with hidden secondary meanings sprinkled here and there. A really fine book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical combination of mystery and art, May 23 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Murder At The Gardner (Paperback)
I was amazed to see that this book had only received one bad review. This is a wonderful book - one in a series of mysteries with a loveable absent-minded professor who speaks his mind and bumbles into all sorts of mischief while solving complex murders. The author also adds her own drawings, which are a nice touch. I highly recommend all the Homer Kelly mysteries-I have read them all - if you like your mysteries to have some weight too them. Not too fluffy, but not overly erudite either.
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1.0 out of 5 stars waste of time
Total waste of time. The characters are contrived, shallow and affected, the plot boring and predictable
Published on Jan 3 1996

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