ARC Review: Forgotten Trail by Claire Kells

Forgotten Trail
Author: Claire Kells
Series: A National Parks Mystery (Book 3)
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (November 7, 2023)

Description: In this third installment of Claire Kells’s thrilling National Park mystery series, Investigative Services Branch agent Felicity Harland ventures through volcanic wilderness to investigate a murder at a new hike-in lodge at Pinnacles National Park.

When a guest turns up dead at the newly opened Pinnacles Grand Hotel, ISB agent Felicity Harland finds herself summoned to a peculiar scene. A gentle breeze blows in from the balcony window, belying the violence of a man stabbed to death in his hotel room. It’s clear to Harland that this murder was personal, especially when the victim’s wife admits that she wanted him dead.

But Harland isn’t so sure that this was a domestic dispute gone bad. When she hears about the Park Service searching for a missing person out on the trails, she sets out with her partner, Ferdinand “Hux” Huxley, to see if the two cases are connected.

As Harland and Hux take on the rocky, exposed terrain of California’s ancient volcanic wonderland, they soon realize that the mystery at the Pinnacles Grand is not at all what it seems—and that a predator may be closing in.

My Thoughts: ISB Agent Felicity Harland is busy working on cold cases when she is called to the new Pinnacles Grand Hotel recently opened in Pinnacles National Park. A body has been found in one of the guest suites during Grand Opening week.

It is a 4.5-mile hike to the hotel. Harland meets her partner Hux there and the two begin their investigation. The FBI should be involved but a credible terrorist threat at the airport in San Francisco is keeping every agent busy. The case looks open-and-shut. After all, the estranged wife was found standing over the body. However, nothing is as it looks at first glance.

The victim - Chris Denton - checked into the resort with a woman who was not his wife. His wife's private investigator told her about the rendezvous, and she decided to confront him. She claims that she didn't kill him but found him in his hotel room. And the woman he checked in with is missing. Nothing is left of her in the hotel room.

But the murder isn't the only case in the park. A woman's dress shoe has been found on a trail with no sign of the woman. Harland and Hux find a driver's license stuck in a tree outside the suite where the body was found. It says Aria Privar who might be the missing person in the murder and who might also be the owner of the shoe in the park. 

As Harland and Hux try to unravel this complicated case, they find hints that it might be related to a suspected murder-suicide that took place in the park back in 1994. 

This was an engaging mystery. It is the third in a series. I enjoyed getting to know more about Harland in this episode and am curious to know where her relationship with Hux will go. 

Favorite Quote:

For the most part, it was common for law enforcement agencies to engage in turf ward, but the "open-and-shut" cases tended to te especially popular. Everyone wanted to tell their superior they'd closed a case and added it to their clearance record.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.