Strangers Among Us: Murder in a Small Town

On offer here is the adolescent variety: Eliot Gardener is maddeningly sullen as only an angry fourteen—year—old can be. He’s also, apparently, a double murderer, having whacked both of his parents with a machete.

There’s little question that Eliot did the deed, but for Sergeant Karl Alberg it feels like a personal failure: The Coast is his...