Murder at Clearwater Ridge
(2026)(The second book in the Paws on the Open Road Mystery series)
A novel by Hailey Hartley
Retired librarian Beverly Larkin has been living her dream life on the road for five years with Oscar, her opinionated red Dachshund who's convinced he's far more intimidating than his twelve-pound frame suggests. When Beverly rolls into the annual Mountain Van Life Meetup at pristine Clearwater Ridge Lake in the Colorado mountains, she's expecting nothing more than campfire stories, workshop tips on solar panel maintenance, and the chance to finally meet the online friends she's been chatting with for months. The tight-knit community of thirty van dwellers has gathered for a week of shared adventures, potluck dinners, and the kind of camaraderie that only comes from people who understand that home is something you drive. But the peaceful mountain retreat takes a deadly turn when Kyle Donovan, the charismatic meetup organizer, collapses at the welcome campfire after drinking herbal tea. What looks like a tragic accident quickly reveals itself as cold-blooded murder, and the shocked community learns that Kyle had discovered someone stealing from the meetup's shared funds and was planning to expose the thief at the next morning's meeting.
As the local park ranger struggles to secure a remote crime scene and the county detective navigates winding mountain roads to reach the campground, Beverly can't help but notice the inconsistencies piling up around Kyle's death. Her decades of library work taught her to spot patterns, organize information, and connect dots that others miss, and Oscar's determined sniffing around the campfire area keeps turning up crucial evidence. Between a heartbroken tea seller with botanical expertise, a rival YouTuber harboring business grudges, a stressed co-organizer with exclusive access to the finances, and whispers of blackmail schemes targeting desperate van lifers, Beverly realizes this idyllic lakeside paradise hides some very desperate secrets. Someone turned a communal tea kettle into a murder weapon, and they're still among the campers, roasting marshmallows and sharing trail mix as if nothing happened.
With Oscar's stubborn determination and her own sharp analytical mind, Beverly must untangle a web of financial theft, blackmail, and betrayal before the killer decides that a nosy retired librarian asking too many questions is the next problem to eliminate. In a community built on trust and shared ideals, discovering that greed can corrupt even the most beautiful settings might be the hardest lesson of all. Can Beverly and Oscar expose a murderer without becoming the next victims buried beneath the mountain pines?
Genre: Cozy Mystery
As the local park ranger struggles to secure a remote crime scene and the county detective navigates winding mountain roads to reach the campground, Beverly can't help but notice the inconsistencies piling up around Kyle's death. Her decades of library work taught her to spot patterns, organize information, and connect dots that others miss, and Oscar's determined sniffing around the campfire area keeps turning up crucial evidence. Between a heartbroken tea seller with botanical expertise, a rival YouTuber harboring business grudges, a stressed co-organizer with exclusive access to the finances, and whispers of blackmail schemes targeting desperate van lifers, Beverly realizes this idyllic lakeside paradise hides some very desperate secrets. Someone turned a communal tea kettle into a murder weapon, and they're still among the campers, roasting marshmallows and sharing trail mix as if nothing happened.
With Oscar's stubborn determination and her own sharp analytical mind, Beverly must untangle a web of financial theft, blackmail, and betrayal before the killer decides that a nosy retired librarian asking too many questions is the next problem to eliminate. In a community built on trust and shared ideals, discovering that greed can corrupt even the most beautiful settings might be the hardest lesson of all. Can Beverly and Oscar expose a murderer without becoming the next victims buried beneath the mountain pines?
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Hailey Hartley's Murder at Clearwater Ridge