Karl Alberg of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police captures a young killer, but later, as he and Cassandra Mitchell are planning to celebrate Valentine's Day, another man with a secret and a gun ruins their evening. 10,000 first printing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
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.
From Publishers Weekly
Although she opens with a forthright murder, Wright (Prized Possessions) eschews the whodunit and even the whydunit to explore dark subplots lacking simple answers. Karl Alberg, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police staff sergeant in the small village of Sechelt, B.C., detected tension in the Gardener family, but he didn't expect 14-year-old Eliot Gardener to murder his parents with a machete. Refusing to dismiss him as a "bad seed," Karl takes an interest in the boy, who refuses to talk to police or social workers at the youth shelter where he is confined. Similarly uncommunicative is Jack Coutts, who has been nursing a grudge against Karl since they were neighbors years ago but only now has turned up to follow Karl around the streets of Sechelt. Although Jack's presence makes Cassandra Mitchell, Karl's significant other, decidedly edgy, Karl explains only that the issue is personal, not work-related. While Jack and Karl circle each other like dogs doomed to fight if their eyes meet, Eliot makes friends with another troubled youth in the detention center?from which they soon escape. These two stories never converge as Wright opts for a juxtaposition of parallel psychologies (Eliot's and Jack's) rather than intersecting plots, holding this tale together less with suspense than with a relentlessly brooding tone.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent/moving mystery akin to the work of P.D. James!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Strangers Among Us (Karl Alberg Mysteries, No. 8) (Hardcover)
L.R. Wright moves us with the intelligent portrayal of a life wasted.
Her central characters of Karl Ahlberg and his
fiancee Cassandra are well rounded, likeable, and
all too human.
You will find your heart aches for the boy in this book, and at the same time he will frighten you.
Wright has the gift of eliciting emotion from her readers.
Her supporting characters (Sid & Bernie) flesh out
the story such that you want to read more about them as well. Altogether a great read!
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Strangers Among Us,
By Gaylo (USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Strangers among Us (Mass Market Paperback)
The book was falling apart. Every page I turned came out. Couldn't finish reading it because it was falling apart. Disappointed!
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Waiting, waiting, waiting...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Strangers Among Us (Hardcover)
I kept waiting for this book to develop something: a character that seemed real, a situation with depth, a conversation with substance. And to no avail--I finished the book without any of those things happening
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