A Chill Rain in January

Divorced, forty-something Staff Sargeant Karl Alberg has two cases to investigate in Sechelt, British Columbia. An elderly woman with dementia has “escaped” from the hospital where she had been living, and a local woman’s visiting brother has died in a seemingly-accidental fall down the basement stairs. The two cases eventually merge in a surprising way. Meanwhile, Alberg must deal with his feelings about his daughters’ college graduation and his ex-wife’s new plans, while also tentatively re-establishing a relationship with his new love interest, Sechelt librarian Cassandra Mitchell.

This series is similar to the television show Columbo in that readers know the identity of the criminal from the beginning. The tension comes show more from the uncertainty about whether Alberg and his colleagues will figure out what’s happened, will be able to find the evidence to arrest the culprit, and prevent any more damage from being done. I much prefer whodunits, so it had one strike against it from the beginning. Alberg isn’t a particularly likeable protagonist, either. However, the Sunshine Coast setting is a draw, and the elderly woman with dementia as well as another character she meets along the way are both characters I’m glad to have met. show less

Another great L. R. Wright mystery. This isn't so much a whodunit as a whydunit and willshebecaught.

As for all of Wright's books, this one is set on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg is the head of the small Sechelt RCMP detachment. Alberg is divorced but dating the local librarian who has just returned from England. Zoe lives in a secluded house by herself just outside of Sechelt with no telephone service and that's just the way she likes it. Ramona has a house she and her husband shared but which she has lived in alone since his death. Now, however, her memory is starting to go and her doctor has persuaded her to live at the hospital which is Sechelt's answer to a personal care home. Enter Zoe's brother from show more Vancouver. He wants money from Zoe in return for which he will give her the scribblers that she kept as a child which contain some secret that would send Zoe to jail if it became public.

Zoe decides that the only way to resolve the problem is to kill her brother. Her plan is to visit him at his Vancouver home, get him drunk and then push him off a cliff. However, she gives in to the temptation to push him down her basement steps when he visits her and then she has to explain his death. Meanwhile, Ramona has left the hospital and she is hiding out. These two investigations converge. Alberg is heading up the investigation into the brother's death but he has trouble keeping his mind on it because Zoe is very attractive. Finally he sees the truth of her character which is psychopathic. show less

British Columbia’s Sinshine Coast isn’t always so sunny for Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg. Although Alberg is effectively the police chief, the most pressing thing on his desk right now is the spunky old lady who has apparently escaped from her retirement home.
Zoe Straachan has a comfortable house, built on Columbia’s Sunshine Coast: secluded, private, far away from the past she has left behind. Beautiful and enigmatic, Zoe has no friends and seemingly no family. Until her brother shows up one day and threatens to reveal the secret she thought was buried forever.
Against his will, Karl finds himself being drawn deeper and deeper into these women’s lives to the detriment of his on-again, off-again relationship with the local show more librarian, Cassandra Mitchell. And then suddenly he realizes the danger that lies ahead-a danger he must do everything to avert before it’s too late. show less

Two eccentric old women, two notebooks from years ago, attempted blackmail, murder make for a fascinating case for RCMP Sergeant Alberg. Well written and characterized. I want to seek out the author's other books.

#3 in the series with RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg. Very tense, suspenseful, with touches of humour and compassion. Very good.

didn't like this one that much. not enough mystery? no likeable characters? tiresome, too long story?