Last Exit In New Jersey - Part 1

Primary Genre: Mystery

Word Count: 36,000

Description and Details:

Looking for feedback on characters and pacing. Thanks!

Nice young ladies really shouldn’t be dumping bodies at sea. Then again, that isn’t stopping Hazel Moran, and she can’t figure where anyone got the idea she was nice to begin with.

Raised aboard her father’s aging schooner and riding shotgun in their old 18-wheeler, there’s little on the road or water that she can’t handle; it’s her people skills that need work. Normally that isn’t an issue – behind the wheel of a Kenworth most people tend to leave her alone. But when Hazel and her father become the targets of some unsavory characters hunting for her blue-haired cousin, their stolen tractor-trailer truck and a delivery that never arrived, she knows it’s time to heed a lesson learned from her favorite hard-boiled paperbacks: playing nice will only end in tears.

For ten sweltering days Hazel navigates the Garden State’s highways and shorelines, contending with a suspiciously wealthy stranger, white trash, Born Agains, appliance salesmen, an unstable stalker and his curiously troublesome companion. It’ll take all her ingenuity, not to mention some fishing tackle and high voltage, if Hazel hopes to protect her family and unravel this tangle of greed and betrayal. And anyone who gets too close, no matter their intent, will discover just how dangerous Hazel truly is as she sets in motion a twisted plan to uncover the truth, settle some scores, and if possible not wind up dead in the process.