In Lincoln, Massachusetts—a Boston exurb of exquisite taste and understatement—one simply doesn’t acknowledge the raw capitalism and the rank privilege that sustain the hot-house liberal sensitivities blooming there. Until Miranda, a woman of devastating wit and looks, enters town politics.   Her goal is to force the right-thinking people of Lincoln to confront their hypocrisies, and ultimately, the cherished refinements that prevent them from beating back the barbarians gathering at their perfectly weather-worn, split-rail fences. As Miranda takes her cause from town hall to the governor’s office, the reader, gliding in her slipstream, experiences a tour of life in the elegant houses at the end of the unmarked gravel driveways, and gets a glimpse into the minds of the people who live in them, fearful of being noticed by anyone but their own kind.   Miranda crusades with all in the righteous certainty of a colonial New England religious dissenter, but contending with the gods of our times. Will she prevail?