Strangers Among Us

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Strangers Among Us is the eighth of L.R. Wright’s psychological
suspense novels set on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, featuring
RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg; his love, Cassandra Mitchell; and a
cast of regular supporting characters. Some earlier titles have had more
page-turning suspense than this latest offering—which begins with the
horrific murder of his parents by a teen who is immediately taken into
custody—but like the other novels, this one shows the author’s great
skill at creating atmosphere of place and taking us into the minds of
some extraordinary people, be they victim or villain, simple-minded,
pathetically lonely, or criminally deranged. There is humor in her
stories, too, but it is gentle and unobtrusive. She builds her suspense
in short chapters, making her books difficult to set aside.

Strangers Among Us centres more than usual on the regular characters,
and much of the reader’s pleasure comes from knowing the developments
to date in the lives of those personalities. Here, Alberg is confronted
with two murders he feels he should have been able to prevent. His
romance with Cassandra continues, but, even though they agreed to marry
in Mother Love (1995), they get no further here than setting the date;
Alberg’s sergeant is still trying to come to terms with his
separation.

Readers who have not discovered the superb, international award-winning
novels in Wright’s consistently engrossing Karl Alberg Mystery series
are advised to start at the beginning, with The Suspect (1985).