To Karl Alberg, a small town on Canada's 'Sunshine Coast' looks like the perfect place to soothe a psyche that's been battered by too much big-city police work.

Bees buzz among the roses, and the local librarian is attractive, intelligent, and unattached. Perhaps he has at last come in from the cold. But sunny towns can conceal a lot of secrets, some of them bleak enough to make a man yearn for some nice straightforward urban crime. An intriguing set of character-studies of the cop, his quarry, and the enigmatic librarian who proves an unlikely bridge between the two.

L.R. Wright's profile page

• Winner, Edgar Award

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 Murder In a Small Town .

EDGAR AWARD, MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA: BEST NOVEL

"Every bit as good as the novels of Ruth Rendell and P.D. James."People

"One of the best books I have read this year." The Boston Globe

"Do yourself a favor and don’t miss this one." San Diego Union

"[A] tight, beautifully written account." Publishers Weekly

"A writer of exceptional talent… her novels are a joy" Toronto Globe & Mail