<P>In an intellectual hamlet in Concord Massachusetts century-old love letters give rise to murder.</p><p>The citizens of Concord Massachusetts never tire of their heritage. For decades the intellectuals of this little hamlet have continued endless debates about Concord’s favorite sons: Emerson Hawthorne Thoreau and their contemporaries. Concord’s latter-day transcendental scholars are a strange bunch but none is more peculiar than Homer Kelly an expert on Emerson and on homicide. An old-fashioned murder is about to put both skills to the test.</p><p>At a meeting of the town’s intellectuals Ernest Goss produces a cache of saucy love letters written by the men and women of the transcendentalist sect. Although Homer chortles at the idea that Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson might have had a fling Goss insists the letters are real. He never gets a chance to prove it. Soon after he is found killed by a musket ball. The past may not be dead but Goss certainly is.</p><p><i>The Transcendental Murder</i> marks the first appearance for Langston’s amateur sleuth Homer Kelly.</P>