Flashback to 1978. A group of young people has taken over the fictional settlement of Flanders, just outside of North Adams and Williamstown, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Nearby is Williams College, which supplies the community with students and professors and the possibilities of earning advanced degrees. These folks are a little late to the party to be considered "hippies," yet they have carved out a unique niche for themselves and for Flanders.

Jennifer Morgan runs an organic cafe, and she's the main character of the story. Annie McGantry runs a farm-fresh co-op. Will Hampton is a craftsman who works with wood. Wendy Scholes works in the cafe and also gives tarot card readings. Graham Marlow is the minister of the church. Zachary Lerner is a professor who tends to hang out here. A few others are regular residents or visitors, too. Their community is as idyllic as its members think they can make it.

Then, of course -- because this is a mystery -- one of the friends is killed. Two local police officers are assigned to investigate the crime and to interrogate the friends. Allard Johns is the older, by-the-book detective. Ford McDermott is the younger, more thoughtful officer. Together they tend to take on the bad-cop, good-cop roles. Naturally, the young people of Flanders resent this intrusion, even though they want to know who was responsible for the murder. Jennifer is especially concerned and curious, because she's the one who found the body. She starts her own amateur investigation and writes down possibilities. When another friend becomes the victim of a possible poisoning, it's obvious that someone has a serious grudge against the people of Flanders. The question is: Is it someone from outside their own circle? Or is it one of THEM?

In the meantime, Jennifer is becoming attracted to the younger policeman. Will this be a good development or a bad one? Can they see one another without compromising the ongoing investigations?

Elana Michelson wrote Part of the Solution with a framework "prologue" and "epilogue," in which Jennifer and Ford accidentally meet again, more than 30 years later. So we already know that they were once close and have since lost touch, and that whatever happens in the rest of the book is something that will bind them forever. It's a nice foreshadowing technique.

As I got closer to the end of the book, and as I started to write this review, I felt as though I had missed some of the clues and the background tidbits found earlier in the narrative. I was compelled to start reading it all over again, now that I knew where the plot was heading. It's rare for me to have this response to a book. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying attention before, or if this was a result of the choices that the author and the characters made in telling the tale. I guess the reason doesn't matter.

Part of the Solution might be the kind of book that you will want to read or to page through a second time, too. The story is especially interesting to those of us who are in the same generation: the ones who launched ourselves into the real world in the late 1970s. It's also fun if you know the territory around North Adams and Williams College. I wouldn't have minded spending more time with these characters ... even though their story here is a complete one.