Land Kills

A projected detective series starring newspaperman Mitch Stevens gets off to a sparkling start with this portrayal of a small college town targeted by developers. Mitch, a journalism prof and former New York City newspaperman, arrives in Southborough, Vt., home of a celebrated summer music festival, to fill in for an ailing friend who edits the old-fashioned local paper. Mitch is drawn to the area and its townspeople, including ex-hippies from the '60s, who are wary of ``flatlanders'' but hungry for their dollars. While looking for property to buy, he stumbles across the body of real estate agent Vera Tolvey, missing since the previous fall. Skeptical that any local would stray into the woods during hunting season without wearing a brightly colored vest, Mitch starts to investigate other unusual deaths, escapes an attempt on his own life and finally nails one of the many suspects. It looks as if likable, knowledgeable Mitch and actress wife Val, a woman of ``intoxicating sensuality,'' will become Vermont fixtures whose subsequent adventures readers will eagerly await. Nat Brandt is a former journalist and onetime PW editor-in-chief; his wife, Yanna, is a film writer and producer. (Nov.)