Dead as a Dodo (The Homer Kelly Mysteries #12)

By: Jane Langton

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Synopsis: 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.