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For fans of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache Mysteries.

"Wright is a master of the psychological thriller."—Booklist

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, intriguing, 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 nice straightforward urban crime. Certainly, that would be simpler than unraveling the brutal, unlikely, and unpremeditated murder of an eighty-five-year-old man!

Winner of the 1986 Edgar Award, The Suspect remains a cult favorite among mystery fans, who are still captivated all these years later by L.R. Wright’s deft and melancholic character study of a cop, his quarry, and the enigmatic librarian who proves an unlikely bridge between the two.

“One of the best books of the year... a novel with a special sense of grace.” —Boston Globe

L.R. Wright's profile page

• Winner, Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year

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 & Cassandra series was adapted for television as Murder In a Small Town .

“Every bit as good as the novels of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell” —People

“Highly original...crime fiction at its most convincing” —The Ottowa Citizen

“One of the best books of the year...a novel with a special sense of grace” —Boston Globe

“Do yourself a favor and don't miss this one” —San Diego Union

“Splendid, with a plot that never palls and characters that quickly take up residence in your heart” —The Star-Phoenix

“A writer of exceptional talent” —Toronto Globe and Mail

“A tight, beautifully written account” —Publishers Weekly