Mary Alice loses no time in making the acquaintance of just about everyone in sight, so watching the sun go down on the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome respite as far as Patricia Anne is concerned. . .until a dead body washes up in the waves and the victim turns out to be one of Mary Alice's newfound friends. With no witnesses t the crime except a few great blue herons, the sisters have no choice but to bypass the clueless police and follow their own instinct to find the killer. Before long they_re on a murky trail of dirty real-estate deals, giant turtle habitats, and a sea of evidence pointing to a mammoth motive for murderer.