RED, WHITE, AND BLUE MURDER: A Hilda Johansson Mystery.(Review)(Brief Article)

JEANNE M. DAMS. Walker, $23.95 (204p) ISBN 0-8027-3341-7

After building a readership with her stories of a contemporary American sleuth, Dorothy Martin, plying her skills in England (The Body in the Transept, Trouble in the Town Hall, etc.), Dams launched a new series with last year's Death in Lacquer Red. A historical set in the author's native South Bend, Ind., that novel introduced Hilda Johansson, a resourceful Swedish immigrant housemaid. Here Hilda returns for a second outing in which murders both local and national disturb the city's tranquillity. In the summer of 1901, class-consciousness, anti-immigrant bias and general chauvinism bubble beneath the surface of …