Blackberry, salal, murder
Sleep While I Sing: Murder in a Small Town
by L.R. Wright
New York: Felony and Mayhem Press, 2024
$26.95 / 9781631943171
Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy
*
The second in a series of reprints of L.R. Wright’s popular Alberg and Cassandra series originally published in the 1980s, Sleep While I Sing is a police procedural with an intricate web of characters connected by the solitary, remote setting of the Sunshine Coast in a rainy, foggy November. Having recently reviewed The Suspect, the first in the series, I can attest that Wright is adept at varying her approaches to murder, which likely contributes to the longevity of the series, which has recently been adapted for television as Murder in a Small Town.
While Wright reveals the culprit to readers on the first page of The Suspect, here she treats us to a more conventional murder mystery—a whodunnit that presents us with several credible suspects and enough twists and turns and red herrings to keep our little grey cells on high alert. In both cases, though, Wright’s psychological exploration—her emphasis on the “why was it done?”—takes us into territory beyond the cozy mystery that a series set in a small town and complete with an ongoing romance might invite.
In an off-the-beaten-track location dense with blackberry and salal bushes, a woman leaps from the passenger side of a car. She soon becomes entangled in the brush, where her murderer repeatedly slashes her neck and then props her body neatly against a cedar tree. Apart from a few scratches from the bramble, her face is unblemished.
Town garbage collector Albert Hingle, with his dog Clyde, is found near the crime site, but will reveal nothing to Corporal Sanducci, who, on route from a café in Halfmoon Bay, has narrowly missed running down the discombobulated man. Only when Alberg arrives on the scene will Hingle talk. When the two officers, joined by Sergeant Sokolowski, go over the details of the crime scene, Hingle, a likely suspect (having a criminal past and residing near the crime scene), maintains his innocence.
Alberg and his two-man crew have little to go on. No purse nor weapon were found at the crime scene, and they do not recognize the woman. Alberg gets creative: he asks librarian Cassandra Mitchell (from whom he is currently estranged) to suggest a portrait artist and follows up on Tommy Cummings, the art teacher from the local high school. Cummings reluctantly agrees to do the portrait, which he accomplishes after a nurse, Norma Hingle (Albert’s wife) assists him by propping up the body in a hospital bed in a way suitable to a portrait. The result is striking.
The reader will identify as a likely suspect Alberg’s rival in romance before Alberg and his crew do. Cassandra has become involved with Roger Galbraith, a down-on-his-luck Hollywood actor temporarily lodging with his sister in Sechelt. The charming gadabout, who is friendly with many women in town (including Norma, to Albert’s chagrin) is visibly upset when Cassandra shows him the portrait. She is sure he recognizes the victim and urges him to contact the police. But he angrily persists in his quest, which is to borrow Cassandra’s car so he can go overnight to the mainland to get more dope, and Cassandra eventually consents. Upon his return, he continues to dismiss Cassandra’s advice.
As copies of the portrait make their way through town, so does speculation about the murder. Even so, it takes a while for that to translate into anything more than gossip, as there are no matches to the woman on the computer and no one comes forward recognizing the portrait. A backpack in a restaurant garbage bin leads to a breakthrough: the victim is Eleanor Sally Dublin, whose home address is in Los Angeles.
Alberg, who is inclined to think Hingle, whom he knows well, is innocent (despite more incriminating evidence) comes round to suspecting Roger. Once he does, he confronts him with evidence acquired through the agent Sally and Roger shared: Sally was rich from real estate investment (while Roger is virtually penniless); the two, at one time, had been lovers; and Roger had fled L.A. because his dope dealing was getting risky. As the police search his sister’s house, Roger tries to convince Cassandra to provide him with an alibi. Although she refuses, she also refuses to provide Alberg with direct answers when he questions her.
A second murder complicates things. When Hingle finds Clyde with his throat slit, he demands a full investigation. Bereft, Hingle is consoled only by the portrait of Clyde Cummings presents to him. Only reluctantly does he loan it to Alberg, who, at Hingle’s behest, orders an autopsy that reveals a pivotal piece of evidence.
Cummings’ portraits have increased his local artistic renown. It is at an opening of an exhibit of his portraits that things come to a climax. All of the cast of characters attend: a nervous Cummings clutches a receipt book; Cassandra and Roger are hand-in-hand, as the latter belittles the art; Alberg is at the ready with questions; Albert Hingle is also at the ready with accusations. Even before Sanducci provides clincher evidence in the form of an identification from the waitress at the café in Halfmoon Bay, Alberg has his man.
What follows is the detailed and gritty testimony of the killer. In a novel first published nearly forty years ago, L.R. Wright shines here, as she does in The Suspect, with psychology. Prompted by Alberg’s expert questioning, the killer reveals, in gruesome detail, a host of murders of young female hitchhikers that date back decades. He not only enumerates the killings, but also speculates on his own motivations. This self-analysis is particularly evocative. That the testimony takes place over several chapters that are interspersed with quotidian details that wrap things up for the other characters adds to its gravitas.
After this extended confession, the release of tension as the lovers reunite is welcome – and dramatic in its own right, as Wright sets that reunion against the backdrop of a rare and beautiful natural occurrence. Will the relationship of Cassandra Mitchell and Karl Alberg take a turn for the better in A Chill Rain in January?
With Sleep While I Sing, L.R. Wright provides readers with the customary mysteries to solve, as well as the deeper questions about motivation that prove more challenging—all of this leavened by a tantalizing on-again-off-again romance.
*
Ginny Ratsoy is a Professor Emerita at Thompson Rivers University. Her scholarly publications have focused on Canadian fiction, theatre, small cities, third-age learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Since 2007, she has also been a volunteer instructor of Canadian Literature with the Kamloops Adult Learners Society, most recently teaching a course on novels set in the BC Interior. Since her retirement in 2020, she has also been involved as a board member and course coordinator in KALS, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 2025. Ratsoy is grateful to have this independent organization devoted to lifelong learning in her community and proud of her small role in its success. [Editor’s note: Ginny has recently reviewed books by L.R. Wright, Jennifer Cooper, Sara Cassidy, Kallie George, Bill Richardson, Alison Hughes, Caroline Woodward, David Suzuki, Iona Whishaw, Danny Ramadan, and Polly Horvath for BCR.]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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