Search - Borderlines (Joe Gunther, Bk. 2)

First time I have read this old time author. Pretty good read!

Out for some sorely needed "R and R," Brattleboro police lieutenant Joe Gunther heads straight to the leafy Vermont town of Gannet - where he spent many a sunny boyhood summer. But Gannet's days are darker than maple syrup now, and not nearly as sweet. As if economic depression weren't enough, townfolk are upset by the Order, a weird back-to-nature cult that keeps expanding ... until it explodes in violence.

First, five cultists are incinerated in a suspicious blaze. Then a solid citizen, an irate anticulturist, is stabbed to death. Now vengeance and mob madness are in the air, and Joe Gunther must take action. Now he knows that the past is dead...the presnt is deadly...and the dangerous key to it all lies hidden among his oldest and dearest friends.

Detective story set in Vermont.