The Second Ignition

The forest is ready to heal. A killer needs it to forget. A cozy Oregon mystery that brings a decades-old secret home.

For the first time since the 2003 Foxglove Fire, a restoration burn is returning good fire to Foxglove Basin. Wildfire investigator Mara Calder hopes the work can help the land—and Alder Ridge—begin again. Rowan Pike is due to give a statement about the past. Before he can speak, he is found dead on the newly burned ground.

The scene offers a familiar temptation: let the fire explain the death. Maras observations will not allow it. Now a present-day murder and a decades-old account of the mountain demand the same thing from her: a reconstruction that can stand without anyones permission to believe it.

With Ember beside her, Tessa Nguyen bringing independent data, and Midge Holloway navigating roads that official maps have forgotten, Mara follows the trail through surviving field records and people who have carried the old story for most of their lives. Sheriff Eli Mercer needs the truth made provable. Someone else needs it to stay unfinished.

To answer for the man who cannot give his statement, Mara must return to the question that has followed her through every season: where did the story really begin?

The Second Ignition is Book 10 of The Cascadia Fireline Mysteries, bringing the Foxglove investigation to its reckoning with a fair-play puzzle, loyal friendships, and hope for what can grow after the truth.

For readers who love:

• A long-running mystery reaching its reckoning

• Field records, old maps, and clues coming together

• An investigator supported by a hard-earned circle

• Oregon forests, restoration, and second chances

• Emotional resolution without graphic violence