Murder at the Gardner (Homer Kelly, #7) by Jane Langton

Murder at the Gardner (Homer Kelly, #7) Reviews

• 
  Pam

  For me, this book was too cutesy by far, but that does not mean it was poorly written. It just didn’t appeal to me. Naturally, there are many allusions to the art collection of Isabella Stewart Gardner, the late 19th century benefactress of the museum in the title. Along with her husband Jack (a Peabody, a Lowell, a Gardner, etc.) who had loads of money, Isabella shopped, shopped, shopped…for Old Masters and objects of art in Europe and Asia. She had her gallery built and as a part of its gifting to the city of Boston it was to keep the art where she personally intended it to be and the museum was not to sell or add to the collection. Legacy, wow, what power.
  
  This light-hearted mystery book was published in 1988 and ironically within two years the REAL crime at the Gardner happened. One night two thieves dressed as policemen gained access and stole 13 major pieces of art worth over $500 million dollars, the single largest unsolved art crime ever.
  
  The real crime is much more interesting than the imagined one here. After the big heist, the empty frames remain on the walls as a sad statement. The museum didn’t close however and a court case in 2009 allowed the museum to expand into an annex. That sort of blows the pretext of the novel that nothing may change. The novel has lots of jokey characters and side stories.
  
  I hope Mrs. Gardner would approve of the changes to her museum, but she really should have left more money for adequate security. A good book on the real crime—-The Gardner Heist: the True Story of the World’s Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser.
• 
  Stuart

  A well-written mystery taking place in the (non-fictional) Gardner Museum in Boston. The story is written in a humorous, tongue-in-cheek style, with the author's drawings of the museum and its collections adding a unique touch and greater understanding of the environment. In the book, the museum is being hit by what seems to be a series of practical jokes - music that seems to be coming from paintings; paintings going missing and turning up in inappropriate places (a toilet and a pub). The director of the museum calls in Homer Kelly, a private detective, to investigate. Then a rich benefactor is found dead and one of the governors is assaulted and left for dead. Now it's serious. In the background lies the greed of some of the governors, who are using the events to trigger a clause in the museum's constitution that says if things don't remain exactly as they were bequeathed, then the collection must be sold, a sale by which they will profit in one way or another. Homer and the police struggle mightily to find clues: the main suspects are the governors and their financial motivations, but Homer eventually stumbles on one person in particular to investigate. In the end, there is not a lot of detection going on; the book is more about the atmosphere of the museum, and the personalities of its governors and administrators. The humorous style of writing, including wry looks at the changes taking place in Boston in the late 1980's are what make the book attractive. A nice read.
• 
  Robyn

  Early Bird Book Deal | Nope. All the focus is on winking at the reader | Langton apparently decided to expend her writing energies in all the places I didn't care about. Bored me senseless from the very start, and yet it seemed to think it was very cute and clever.
• 
  V. Briceland

  When Murder at the Gardner originally released in 1988, I considered it the pinnacle of Langton's works to date, primarily for its peerless premise. Namely: when Isabella Stewart Gardner established a museum in the Fenway area of Boston, packed to the gills with her extensive collection of art, she was so reluctant to consider any future change in either the building or her personal arrangement of the pieces therein that she stipulated in her will that if any changes were to be made of any kind, the entire collection should immediately be dissolved and sold off at auction.
  
  In this Homer Kelly mystery, Langton decided to upset the precarious balance of Gardner's bequest by setting a villain loose among the museum's exhibits—escalating from altering the displays and marring symmetry, to stealing paintings, and eventually, committing murder—forcing the Gardner's board at every step of the way to accede to a dead woman's demands and liquidate one of Boston's greatest cultural institutions.
  
  In 1988 the premise stuck me as brilliantly conceived. It's not really Langton's fault that two years later two non-fictional thieves disguised as police officers made off with thirteen works from the collection worth over $500 million...and not a damned thing happened. The pieces were never recovered. The Gardner's open to this day. Langton in her novel has her characters talk a lot about the high cost of insuring the art, but it turned out that in real life, nothing in the Gardner has actually ever been insured.
  
  Again, Langton's not really at fault here, but re-reading this particular entry with hindsight utterly deflates the premise's originality and tension. It's a bit like reading with modern eyes an earnest murder mystery originally written in 1910 set aboard the not-yet-completed-in-real-life Titanic, in which a mastermind sets off bombs and repeatedly sabotages the ship's hull only to find she really is unsinkable, after all.
• 
  Jim Layman

  Much of Langton's usual style, with enjoyable descriptions of the Gardner Museum's beloved art. It felt like the author dragged us along a bit more than in other volumes I read. And, our slueth, Home Kelly, was ineffective. Sadly, Mary Kelly, a wonderful character, has only cameo appearances.
• 
  Ellen

  the mystery itself was slow and lacklustre but the sketches and descriptions of the artwork in the Gardner, a museum that I frequent, were fantastic
• 
  Kathryn

  A classic murder mystery, with that touch of whimsy one wants in a good murder....
• 
  B.

  2.5 stars
• 
  Nadia

  Having been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum on numerous occasions, I was thrilled to pick up this mystery. The premise of the mystery is that pranks that threaten the future of the museum are being perpetrated and Homer Kelly is pulled in to help track down the culprit.
  
  There is a lot of description of the museum's artwork and it is an added bonus if you have a familiarity with some of the works of art, there are also line drawings in the book that add to that. The story unfolds slowly and is not about only the murder and the solving of that crime. This is also a story about a time and place, namely Boston in the late 80s. Homer is dismayed at the changing of the times - the demise of the small businesses he has frequented and the rise of conglomerates. This is not an action filled novel, but one to sit back and enjoy.
• 
  Nancy

  I read the first 200 pages rather slowly. I learned a lot about the Gardner Museum, it's directors, its staff, it's beautiful court yard garden, and it's works of art. It started to get really interesting, when I thought a character I liked, had been killed, when she was thrown out a window. It became a page turner for the pages after 200. I really enjoyed the last pages of the book. I did a google search for the Gardner Museum in Boston. I found some very beautiful works of art, and I loved their garden.
• 
  Patricia Lane

  I read this one years ago, before I started volunteering at the Gardner. Published in 1988, two years before the theft, it was interesting to see how the staff at the Gardner was depicted as eccentric and a bit amateur - probably closer to the mark at the time than anyone would like to admit! The plot was a bit silly and the writing dated, but the museum and the art work were accurately and lovingly represented and Langton obviously did her homework.
• 
  Vikki

  I read this book right after I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston. I loved the museum and was delighted when I got back to Kansas to find that a book had been written by Jane Langton about the museum. Fiction and mystery. I could just picture the museum when I read the book. I sure wish those four paintings will be found someday.
• 
  Katherine Rowland

  So wordy. So very wordy. The premise of this book is fine, and the mystery is adequate, but whole passages desperately needed to be pruned. Rather than being content to be a mystery, this book struggles and fails to say Important And Clever Things while propping itself up with the mystery. Engaging characters and an interesting setting, but not recommended.
• 
  Susan

  It was fun to read about the Gardner Museum. The line drawings of works of art and spaces added a lot, as did the floor plans. Written twenty-five years ago, there were now-nostalgic mentions of banks of pay phones and of messages sent by postal letter.
• 
  Jennifer

  What a funny and wonderful story. Some will think these old-fashioned, as indeed they are. But they're heartwarming and honest and tell a story about Boston at one time in its history. This one has wonderful illustrations and a lot of interest to art lovers. I recommend them.
• 
  Joyce

  One of my favorites in the series, in part because I love the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and this took me back there over and over.
• 
  Kaylynn

  A rather lackluster mystery where the detective did very little and the murderer was obvious. I did like all the stuff about art, though.
• 
  Joanne

  Slow-paced (VERY slow-paced) mystery enjoyable because it's set at the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum in Boston, which provides some erudition about art. Otherwise the plot is pretty silly.
• 
  Amyem

  
  http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/2...
  
  I own a copy and bookcrossed a copy.
• 
  Sandra

  I love the Gardner museum and I think that is what mostly kept me hanging on until the end. This was not a real page turner for me.