The final installment of Jan Karon's popular "Mitford" series has arrived, delivering lots of laughs but also some disappointment.

		"LIGHT FROM HEAVEN" By Jan Karon Viking ($26.95)

Over the course of seven novels and two novellas, Karon has developed the fictional town of Mitford, peopled with colorful characters. At the center is Father Tim Kavanagh, a beloved Episcopal priest who has married his effervescent neighbor, Cynthia, and taken in the down-and-out boy, Dooley.

His priestly duties bring him into contact with an incredible range of people from his busybody secretary to an elderly jokester who laughs despite the trials of caring for his schizophrenic wife.

The strength of Karon's books lies in the humor provided by those characters. Yet, she often keeps things too simple and naive.

Still, these people are just plain funny. Karon's books seem so simplistic that she masks how hard it is to write something that can make a reader laugh out loud. But her final novel in the series isn't the crown jewel readers might be hoping for.

Part of the problem is the setting. Father Tim and Cynthia are house-sitting for a year at the farm of a veterinarian parishioner, too far removed from the townspeople readers have come to know and love.

Father Tim's bishop gives him a new task in his semi-retirement -- to raise a congregation from poor mountain dwellers outside Mitford. The story of the new church provides new characters, but they don't live up to the original ones. But, Karon had no choice but to move out of Mitford because many of her best original characters are no longer around.

Miss Sadie, the rich but down-to-earth parishioner, died in a previous book. Dooley, who provided a hefty portion of the comic material as a young boy, has grown up and gone off to college.

"Shepherds Abiding," the novella that immediately preceded "Light from Heaven," already scraped the bottom of the Mitford barrel, dwelling on people who previously were minor characters for good reason: They just weren't quite as colorful as the original main characters.

This novel is also too pat, reading like a series of vignettes meant to tie bows on leftover little mysteries and episodes from previous books.

Problems aside, however, the fact remains that Karon knows how to make readers laugh, and this book is no exception. Even some of the wrap-up scenes are just right, including one with Dooley that has been anticipated for several books now. As usual, Cynthia remains a sterling character who knows precisely the right funny thing to say at an awkward moment. Plus, any author who can turn a funeral scene into a knee-slapper deserves some points.