Eccentric Harvard philosophy professor Homer Kelly and his sharp wife Mary are like a literary Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man fame. Jane Langston has put the frumpy professor through a series of whimsical mysteries for 30 years now, but this is the most original and fanciful. Combining hard-edged crime suspense with philosophical meanderings, a meditation on Darwinism, intellectual curiousity, Alice in Wonderland-styled zaniness, and a playful prose style, Dead as Dodo is joyful reading.