When Aunt Clarissa gave little Stuart a copy of a book by Horatio Alger in 1897, she could scarcely have known that it would be involved in four murders. If the average detective was handed an inscribed copy of a boy's book fifty years later and asked to trace the original owner, he wouldn't know where to start. However, problems of this sort are meat and drink to Simon Lash, and soon many people are wishing that the mean-tempered detective had never heard of Horatio Alger, little Stuart, or Aunt Clarissa.