Fall from Grace

Summer along the Sunshine Coast is murderously hot in this moody mystery from “Canada’s Queen of Crime Fiction” —the basis for the Fox TV and Hulu series Murder in a Small Town (Chatelaine).

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).

“Forceful prose, unique characters, evocative imagery . . . quality material from a talented writer.” —Library Journal