Last Light on the Road
(2026)(The fourth book in the Paws in the Pines Mystery series)
A novel by Hailey Hartley
Freelance outdoor writer and photographer Dessa Crane came to Callow Road for the bones of the place — the structural honesty of a mountain landscape in November, after the green is gone and only what's real remains. She rented the cabin at the end of a dead-end road for two weeks of quiet and winter light, brought her six-year-old malamute Ghost, and told herself the essay she'd been circling for two years would finally find its shape. Then a blizzard sealed the road, a neighbor didn't show up for breakfast, and Dessa found herself standing in a doorway looking at a scene that didn't add up — because some details tell the truth even when everything else is arranged to lie.
Deputy Corwin Spade arrives from Dunmore County when the road finally allows it, stretched thin across more territory than one deputy should cover and willing to take whatever reliable help presents itself. What he finds is a photographer with a notebook full of field observations, a memory card with time-stamped frames she didn't know she'd need, and a malamute whose instincts had been running ahead of the investigation since the first night of the storm. As Dessa and Spade work through the small group of old friends who shared the road for the week, a picture emerges of a friendship carrying a secret twenty years old — one that someone finally decided could no longer be allowed to stand.
Last Light on the Road is a sharp, atmospheric, and deeply satisfying cozy mystery — the fourth installment in the Paws in the Pines series — set on a snowbound mountain road where the light is honest, the coffee is always better at someone else's cabin, and a very deliberate malamute has been paying attention since long before anyone thought to ask her what she'd seen.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Deputy Corwin Spade arrives from Dunmore County when the road finally allows it, stretched thin across more territory than one deputy should cover and willing to take whatever reliable help presents itself. What he finds is a photographer with a notebook full of field observations, a memory card with time-stamped frames she didn't know she'd need, and a malamute whose instincts had been running ahead of the investigation since the first night of the storm. As Dessa and Spade work through the small group of old friends who shared the road for the week, a picture emerges of a friendship carrying a secret twenty years old — one that someone finally decided could no longer be allowed to stand.
Last Light on the Road is a sharp, atmospheric, and deeply satisfying cozy mystery — the fourth installment in the Paws in the Pines series — set on a snowbound mountain road where the light is honest, the coffee is always better at someone else's cabin, and a very deliberate malamute has been paying attention since long before anyone thought to ask her what she'd seen.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Hailey Hartley's Last Light on the Road