Hot Chocolate & Cold Case
(2026)(The second book in the Justine Case Campervan Mystery series)
A novel by Penny Lane-Parker
One island. Two ferries. And nowhere to hide.
Jay Case is on the run from a warrant she never earned, living out of a battered old campervan called Hemingway with Mister Nixon, a basset hound who attracts considerably more attention than she would like. When a police checkpoint forces her off the interstate, Jay changes course for Ocracoke—a tiny Outer Banks island where one name in a dead woman's notebook may finally give her a lead on the woman who framed her.
Ocracoke turns out to be a surprisingly good place to disappear. Jay finds a cash job at a harbor burger shack, a hidden spot for Hemingway, and a community where Mister Nixon quickly becomes the local attraction. But the real reason she stays is Kira Alvarez, a former ghostwriter whose name appears in the notebook—and who once worked for the same woman responsible for destroying Jay's life.
Kira is alive. More importantly, she may know why other people connected to that past are not. For the first time since Jay started running, she has found someone who might understand what happened to her—and perhaps help her uncover the truth.
But an island with only two ways on and off is not just a good place to hide. It is also a very easy place to trap someone. And while Jay begins to believe she may finally have found a safe place to stop running, someone else is already on the road to Ocracoke.
For fans of Tonya Kappes and Tyler Rhodes — an island cozy mystery with a campervan, a basset hound, and plenty of trouble along the way, from the Justine Case Campervan Mysteries.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Jay Case is on the run from a warrant she never earned, living out of a battered old campervan called Hemingway with Mister Nixon, a basset hound who attracts considerably more attention than she would like. When a police checkpoint forces her off the interstate, Jay changes course for Ocracoke—a tiny Outer Banks island where one name in a dead woman's notebook may finally give her a lead on the woman who framed her.
Ocracoke turns out to be a surprisingly good place to disappear. Jay finds a cash job at a harbor burger shack, a hidden spot for Hemingway, and a community where Mister Nixon quickly becomes the local attraction. But the real reason she stays is Kira Alvarez, a former ghostwriter whose name appears in the notebook—and who once worked for the same woman responsible for destroying Jay's life.
Kira is alive. More importantly, she may know why other people connected to that past are not. For the first time since Jay started running, she has found someone who might understand what happened to her—and perhaps help her uncover the truth.
But an island with only two ways on and off is not just a good place to hide. It is also a very easy place to trap someone. And while Jay begins to believe she may finally have found a safe place to stop running, someone else is already on the road to Ocracoke.
For fans of Tonya Kappes and Tyler Rhodes — an island cozy mystery with a campervan, a basset hound, and plenty of trouble along the way, from the Justine Case Campervan Mysteries.
Genre: Cozy Mystery