Sleep While I Sing

Excellent writing, inventive plots and realistic characters distinguish Wright's mysteries. In the sequel to her Edgar nominee, The Suspect, Sergeant Karl Alberg of the Mounties is getting nowhere trying to find the killer of an unidentified woman in his small town on the Canadian coast. On the advice of his former lover, Cassandra Mitchell, Alberg asks the high-school art teacher to draw the victim's picture, which leads to her identification. She had been hitchhiking to meet Roger Galbraith, a visiting actor with whom Cassandra is having an affair after jilting Alberg. Galbraith is the prime suspect, but there are others, and the suspense becomes tormenting as the author leads reader through blind alleys and, finally, to an astounding revelation adroitly concealed until the story's close. (November 13)