Strangers Among Us (Karl Alberg Mysteries, No. 8) - Hardcover

The Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Laurali R. Wright returns with an atmospheric account of murder and madness in a sleepy town on Vancouver Island. The story expertly addresses themes from of repressed memories, and juvenile justice, while questioning the past performance of Wright's protagonist, police detective Karl Alberg. Evocative of the wave-lapped shores and wild inlands of the Pacific Northwest, Strangers Among Us is hard to put down.

Sullen and withdrawn, homesick and angry, fourteen-year-old Eliot Gardener has been headed for trouble ever since his family moved from Nova Scotia to the damp, grey Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. But not like this. Not standing on the bramble-choked, blood-soaked beach where his parents lie murdered--and his sister slashed--by the machete he has turned on them...and can't remember why!

Some say Eliot is a bad seed. RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg doesn't buy that. But the case weights heavily on him, for he knew the Gardeners and he should have seen something coming. And now, poisoning the joy of his and Cassandra Mitchell's wedding plans, a piece of his own past--the survivor of another shattered family--is stalking him. Someone else he's failed. Someone who wants revenge.

And until he can lay to rest the madness of that past, Alberg cannot hope to enter the silent mind of Eliot, where a time bomb is ticking away.