Strangers Among Us: Murder in a Small Town (Alberg & Cassandra, 8). This item is unavailable.Strangers Among Us: Murder in a Small Town (Alberg & Cassandra, 8)

Vancouver's Sunshine Coast is one of Canada's famous beauty spots, but as fans of L.R. Wright's books know, it harbors eleventy-seven versions of crazy.

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 patch, and he should have seen the trouble coming. He's getting ready to marry his longtime sweetheart, but the guilt is poisoning his joy--so much so that when a second killer seems to have Alberg in his sights, the threat feels almost justified.

L.R. Wright ("Bunny" to her family and friends) was best known for her celebrated mystery series set in a little town on Western Canada's Sunshine Coast, featuring Karl Alberg of the Canadian police. In 1986 the first book in the series, The Suspect, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year, making Wright the first Canadian to be so honored. Two other books in the series--A Chill Rain in January and Mother Love--won Arthur Ellis Awards (now the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence). Wright died in 2001, and in 2024 the Alberg series was adapted for television as Murder In a Small Town.