A historic community of 30,000 nestled in the foothills of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, Northampton appears at first to be the quaint, Rockwellian ideal suggested by the title of Tracy Kidder's remarkable Home Town. The unique alchemy of the place—roughly divided into progressive, liberal-minded newcomers and native traditionalists—produces a healthy and attractive cultural climate that Kidder clearly admires. But he's equally fascinated by the many strange and sometimes dark undercurrents that are just as much a part of Northampton, continually giving his book new and surprising dimensions. Kidder spent a year cruising the evening patrol with Tommy O'Connor, a fair-minded and candid police sergeant who stayed in town, married his high-school sweetheart, and wound up with the job he fantasized about as a child. Home Town follows him through a particularly agonizing period in which one of his oldest friends, a fellow officer, stands accused of sexually assaulting his 7-year-old daughter. With the case providing Kidder with a natural and compelling narrative through-line, he's free to populate the rest of his slice-of-life with colorful minor characters and vignettes, which he likens to "dots on a pointillist painting." Many of the chapters read like short stories, yet, taken as a whole, they're all different answers to the same question: How does a town shape its inhabitants, and vice versa? For some, such as a fearful single mother enrolling in the local women's college, it becomes a stabilizing force, a chance for her to redeem herself and reclaim a better life. Other residents play a more integral role, including a longtime troublemaker and reliable drug informant who's always either in jail or snitching his way out of it. To his great credit, Kidder never tries to extend himself beyond what he's observed, resisting the urge to hold up the city or its citizens as symbols of something larger in America. Northampton may be a Home Town, but it's not an Everytown.