The Last Campfire

The last campfire is cold. The secrets around it are still burning in this cozy autumn mystery.

The Alder Ridge Mushroom Festival was supposed to celebrate the seasons first rain. By morning, the tents are sagging, the campground is mud, and wilderness-club founder Gwen Loder is dead in the camp-host trailer. A heater, a closed door, a cold wet night: the explanation seems painfully simple.

But wildfire investigator Mara Calder finds something outside that doesnt belong in the story everyone is telling. The abandoned campfire holds a record of its own, and the people who gathered around it cannot all be remembering the same night.

With Ember working the damp ground and retired lookout Midge Holloway keeping her own brisk account of the festival, Mara follows the evidence through club finances, old resentments, and Gwens plans to protect public access to Juniper Flat. Someone had a reason to stop her final announcement. Someone also needs the mountain to keep a false timetable.

The arrival of a state investigator with ties to Sheriff Eli Mercer adds another complication to a case already crowded with loyalties. Mara can read the ashes. Reading the people around them may cost her more.

The Last Campfire is Book 4 of The Cascadia Fireline Mysteries: a rain-soaked Oregon whodunit with autumn atmosphere, a fair-play puzzle, and warmth beneath the unease.

For readers who love:

• Autumn festivals and rain-soaked forest campgrounds

• A clue hiding in an ordinary fire ring

• Disputed memories and small-town family tensions

• A loyal spaniel and a wonderfully blunt friend

• An evolving romance alongside a satisfying whodunit