It's 1978, and Jennifer Morgan, a sharp-tongued New Yorker on the run from graduate school, has traded a dissertation on Emily Brontë for lava lamps, craft shops, and boysenberry muffins in Flanders, Massachusetts, a countercultural haven that smells faintly of patchouli and revolution. Then a body turns up, and Jennifer's hard-won idyll cracks wide open.

Egged on by her Tarot-reading housemate and stonewalled by the hippie-hating police chief, Jennifer takes it upon herself to solve the murder, trading theories (and sparks) with Ford McDermot, the young cop whose quiet intelligence might make him the unlikeliest ally, or something more. The suspects are all here: a gentle woodworker, a Yeats-wannabe poet, an anti-war hero, a peace-loving minister, and an organic farmer who knows how to hold a grudge.

With Dylan on the stereo and a joint making the rounds, Part of the Solution is a sharp, funny, unexpectedly moving trip back to the 1970s. It’s a mystery for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and Only Murders in the Building who wish they knew those characters back in the day and like their mysteries flavored with snappy dialogue, classic oldies, and boho cultural panache.

More than a mystery, Part of the Solution brings us back to a living, breathing world whose offbeat charm and literary soulfulness can’t stop the past from intruding on the present or stop time from moving on.