God in Concord

Liberally laced with wry Yankee humor, Langton's eighth Homer Kelly mystery, after The Dante Game , chides the American propensity to glorify the new while destroying the old. Few people in Concord, Mass., seem concerned when residents of Pond View Trailer Park, near Walden Pond and the municipal dump, begin to die. Most of the citizenry is more involved in the conflict over the proposed development of a mall and condominiums near the pond. Retired detective Homer Kelly suspects the deaths may not be accidental, although he knows the projected development doesn't involve Pond View property. Kelly is assisted in his (unofficial) investigation by Ananda Singh, a native of India who has made a pilgrimage to the locale immortalized by Henry David Thoreau. An invasion of Boston homeless people and a local election further divide the townspeople into two camps: those who seek to preserve Concord's historical ambience and those who want it to become urban and chic. Langton's simple, elegant pen-and-ink drawings add to the mood of her leisurely paced, well-crafted puzzler. (June)