The Blackline Map

An ice storm seals the mountain. A killer starts editing its history. An icebound cozy mystery with a deadly missing chapter.

An archive weekend at Cedar Spur should preserve Alder Ridges fire-service history. Volunteers are cataloguing old maps, dispatch logs, and radio tapes when freezing rain cuts the mountain off. By morning, a records cabinet has burned and retired dispatcher Len Crowe is dead.

Wildfire investigator Mara Calder returns to a place full of exhausted witnesses and carefully handled memories. The damage tells her something was moved. The archive suggests someone had a reason. To reconstruct the night, she must work out which parts of the towns history survived by chance—and which survived because somebody chose them.

The deeper Mara looks, the harder it becomes to separate grief from loyalty, and loyalty from a story polished for too many years. Retired lookout Midge Holloway knows the voices on those old recordings. Asking what she remembers may be the most difficult question Mara has ever put to a friend.

With Sheriff Eli Mercer and Priya Shah following the evidence, Mara must find the truth behind a new death before the record of an old fire is damaged beyond repair.

The Blackline Map is Book 9 of The Cascadia Fireline Mysteries, an atmospheric winter whodunit where a close-knit communitys cherished past meets the physical evidence it cannot explain away.

For readers who love:

• Storm-isolated mountain settings and a closed circle

• Old recordings, archive rooms, and missing evidence

• A beloved recurring character facing a hard truth

• Testing a hometown legend against the facts

• A clue-rich mystery without graphic violence