A Touch of Panic: Murder in a Small Town (Paperback or Softback)

Read along with the new TV drama, streaming now on FOX TV and Hulu!

For fans of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache Mysteries.

"Wright is a master of the psychological thriller."—Booklist

Ruthless businessman Gordon Murphy has something of a Midas touch... in everything but love.

Now he’s set his sights on Cassandra Mitchell, even though she’s happily sharing a bed and breakfast with Sergeant Karl Alberg of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Meanwhile, Alberg has some actual policing problems to contend with — a stolen coin collection, a hapless would-be burglar, local worthies hollering about the state of one citizen’s front yard.

It sounds all charming and cozy... but this is L.R. Wright we’re talking about: Alberg may have left the Toronto police force in the belief that small-town crimes would be cuddlier, but Wright takes great care in pointing out just how wrong he was, revealing the dark roots beneath the roses of the Sunshine Coast.

“Spellbinding... Wright tells her fiendish tale in angelic prose.”—Toronto Star

L.R. Wright ("Bunny" to her family and friends) was best known for her celebrated mystery series set in a little town on Western Canada's Sunshine Coast, featuring Karl Alberg of the Canadian police. In 1986 the first book in the series, The Suspect, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year, making Wright the first Canadian to be so honored. Two other books in the series―A Chill Rain in January and Mother Love―won Arthur Ellis Awards (now the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence). Wright died in 2001, and in 2024 the Alberg series was adapted for television as Murder In a Small Town.