Thoreau at Devil’s Perch

In this promising debut, Oak (the pen name of Thoreau enthusiasts Ben and Beth Oak) makes a convincing case that author Henry David Thoreau would have been a perceptive sleuth. One summer day in 1846, Dr. Adam Walker chances to meet Thoreau at the bottom of a cliff near Plumford, Mass., where they come across the body of a black man. After the authorities conclude that the death was an accident—in spite of evidence to the contrary—Thoreau and Adam decide to investigate, along with Adam’s strong-willed cousin, artist Julia Bell. Their inquiry takes them from a Boston whorehouse and the home of a righteous preacher to Walden Pond. While the sexual tension in the cousins’ developing feelings for each other may strike some readers as histrionic, Thoreau is just as you’d expect him: erudite, eccentric, waxing philosophical about his love of nature, and a natural detective. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Nov.)