The Inspection Trail

The rear door is locked from the outside. Inside, a woman is dead.

For Syracuse code enforcement inspector Cal Raines, the condemned duplex should be a matter of documenting hazards. Then a new complaint appears beneath Alma Bell's closed file-after her body has been found.

Front bedroom. Outside lock.

Cal wants to know who submitted it. But the records are restricted, the entries refuse to fit, and his own adult daughter, Mara, has stopped answering his calls.

Convinced the two cases are connected, Cal follows the trail through winter streets, tenant complaints, and files he has no authority to open. His longtime partner urges caution. The detective handling Mara's disappearance challenges his conclusions. Every unanswered question draws him further into a search that is becoming impossible to separate from his own home.

Cal has spent his career identifying danger. As the trail turns personal, can he trust his judgment about the person he most wants to protect?

The Inspection Trail is an atmospheric psychological thriller about grief, obsession, and the uneasy boundary between safety and control.