Summer along Canada’s Sunshine Coast is murderously hot in this moody mystery thriller—the basis for the Fox TV and Hulu series Murder in a Small Town.
RCMP Sergeant Karl Alberg is attempting to escape the heat with his girlfriend Cassandra when they discover a body on the beach, fresh from a fatal plunge into the icy, all-too-appealing waves. As Alberg knows from his days as a big-city cop, heat can make people do strange things—such as the recent act of vandalism at a local petting zoo. But was there something more to this untimely death?
Meanwhile, Alberg’s personal life also threatens to boil over. Not only is his daughter visiting, but his ex-wife is getting married again. Weaving these provocative strands through a Pacific Northwest heatwave, acclaimed author L.R. Wright once again delivers an atmospheric mystery with “a most appealing protagonist—akin to P. D. James's Dalgleish and Ruth Rendell's Wexford, but with a quintessentially Canadian voice” (Publishers Weekly).
L.R. Wright (1939-2001) was a Canadian writer best known as the author of the Karl Alberg mystery series. The first novel in the series, The Suspect, was a surprise winner of the 1986 Edgar Award for best mystery novel of the year.