Balcony of Deceit
(2026)(The sixth book in the Paws and Portholes Mysteries series)
A novel by Hailey Hartley
Burned-out public defender Vanessa Cruz boards the Caribbean Dream with one desperate goal: escape the crushing weight of her caseload and remember what it feels like to sleep through the night. Armed with nothing but a suitcase, her relentlessly cheerful Pug Justice, and strict orders from her colleagues to actually relax, Vanessa is determined to spend seven days doing absolutely nothing related to the law. But when Justice's insistent barking wakes her at dawn on the second morning at sea, Vanessa discovers a nightmare on her private balcony: a body, sprawled across her deck furniture, dropped from somewhere above. Ship security wants to rule it a tragic suicide, but Vanessa's legal training screams that nothing about this scene makes sense.
The victim was an environmental compliance officer who never went near balconies due to his fear of heights, yet supposedly climbed over a chest-high railing to jump. As Vanessa investigates despite explicit warnings from ship security, she uncovers a web of illegal waste dumping, falsified records, and a conspiracy that runs deeper than one whistleblower's death. With Justice's stubborn nose tracking chemical residue the security team overlooked, Vanessa discovers that the person who silenced the victim has millions in cost-cutting bonuses riding on keeping the operation secret. Between threatening notes slipped under her door, evidence being systematically destroyed, and a killer who's willing to strike again, Vanessa must navigate maritime law and corporate corruption to prove what really happened before the ship docks and a murderer disappears into the crowd.
The body position suggests impact, not a voluntary fall. The victim's personal effects are all intact. And that chemical scent Justice keeps alerting to doesn't match anything from the victim's cabin. Between crew members too terrified to talk, a corporate auditor more concerned with liability than truth, and someone who's already killed once to protect their secrets, Vanessa faces an impossible choice: walk away and let a murderer go free, or risk everything to expose the truth. Can a weary public defender and her determined Pug unmask a killer who's betting that nobody will investigate too closely? Or will Vanessa discover that some cases are too dangerous to prosecute? One thing's certain: this Caribbean cruise is going to require far more than a vacation mindset.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
The victim was an environmental compliance officer who never went near balconies due to his fear of heights, yet supposedly climbed over a chest-high railing to jump. As Vanessa investigates despite explicit warnings from ship security, she uncovers a web of illegal waste dumping, falsified records, and a conspiracy that runs deeper than one whistleblower's death. With Justice's stubborn nose tracking chemical residue the security team overlooked, Vanessa discovers that the person who silenced the victim has millions in cost-cutting bonuses riding on keeping the operation secret. Between threatening notes slipped under her door, evidence being systematically destroyed, and a killer who's willing to strike again, Vanessa must navigate maritime law and corporate corruption to prove what really happened before the ship docks and a murderer disappears into the crowd.
The body position suggests impact, not a voluntary fall. The victim's personal effects are all intact. And that chemical scent Justice keeps alerting to doesn't match anything from the victim's cabin. Between crew members too terrified to talk, a corporate auditor more concerned with liability than truth, and someone who's already killed once to protect their secrets, Vanessa faces an impossible choice: walk away and let a murderer go free, or risk everything to expose the truth. Can a weary public defender and her determined Pug unmask a killer who's betting that nobody will investigate too closely? Or will Vanessa discover that some cases are too dangerous to prosecute? One thing's certain: this Caribbean cruise is going to require far more than a vacation mindset.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Hailey Hartley's Balcony of Deceit