Karl Alberg

To Karl Alberg, the coastal town of Sechelt, just north of Vancouver, looks like the perfect place to soothe a psyche that’s been battered by big-city police work. Bees buzz among the roses, and the local librarian is attractive, intriguing, and unattached. Perhaps he has at last come in from the cold. But sunny towns can conceal a lot of secrets—some of them bleak enough to make a man yearn for some nice straightforward urban crime.

Karl Alberg was a big-city cop, for Pete’s sake. He solved crimes involving gangsters, druglords, real hardened criminals. He couldn’t possibly be stumped by a murder in the sweet coastal town of Sechelt, British Colombia. Yet here he is, facing one of the most gruesome and baffling murders of his career.

It’s sunny days for Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg, even as everyone else in Canada is shivering. The magnificent Cassandra Mitchell, who has a disconcerting habit of disappearing from both the town of Sechelt and Alberg’s bed, has appeared once again. And though Alberg is effectively the police chief, the most pressing thing on his desk right now is the spunky old lady who has apparently absconded from her retirement home—most likely in search of a good martini.

RCMP Sergeant Karl Alberg is attempting to escape the heat with his girlfriend Cassandra when they discover a body on the beach, fresh from a fatal plunge into the icy, all-too-appealing waves. As Alberg knows from his days as a big-city cop, heat can make people do strange things—such as the recent act of vandalism at a local petting zoo. But was there something more to this untimely death?

As Canadian police detective Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg investigates the disappearance of Charlie O'Brea, young drugstore worker Eddie Addison's obsession with a pretty student leads to a downward spiral of violence.

Gordon Murphy has a Midas touch for business, but he’s all thumbs when it comes to love. So Sergeant Karl Alberg isn’t too concerned when Murphy sets his sights on Karl’s girlfriend Cassandra. These days the happy couple share both a bed and a bed and breakfast. Besides, 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 a fellow citizen’s front yard.