Prized Possessions: Karl Alberg #5

When Emma O’Brea’s husband, Charlie, disappears, it quickly becomes apparent that Emma was the only person in Canada who didn’t recognize how desperate he had been to leave. Eddie Addison is an overgrown delivery boy dangerously obsessed with a pretty young student. Eddie and Emma would seem to have little in common, but when Inspector Karl Alberg is called in to solve the riddle of Charlie’s vanishing act, the two sets of disturbing delusions begin to converge.

L.R. Wright worked as a reporter and a columnist until turning to freelance writing full time. She published her first novel, Neighbours, in 1979 and two more in the next five years before turning to the mystery genre. Her first mystery novel, The Suspect, won the 1986 Edgar Award for Best Novel; beating out entries by Simon Brett, Ruth Rendell, and Paul Auster. She went on to write eight more novels in the Karl Alberg Mysteries series between 1986 and 1997.