This dark-hued "cozy" murder mystery ushers into the world of the amateur sleuth Sidney Hirsch, a fiftysomething, long-haired, long-bearded, aristocratic Sherlock who, in this opening appearance, comes complete with a formidable if circumstantial female Watson: his sharp-witted M.A. candidate daughter, Margaret Anne. On their way to a vacation destination together, Hirsch, on a whim, makes a detour to a small seaside town in southern New Jersey where they soon find themselves enmeshed in a grotesque case of murder. The execution-style killing has all the earmarks of a professional hit, and...