Fire at the Track: A Harness Racing Mystery by M.J. Evans

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Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Fire at the Track: A Harness Racing Mystery by M.J. Evans. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!

Fire at the Track: A Harness Racing Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Pennsylvania
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dancing Horse Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 21, 2026
Print length ‏ : ‎ 285 pages
Paperback

Twenty-eight horses. One deadly fire. A racetrack hiding secrets.

When a late night blaze destroys Barn 7 at Liberty Racetrack, killing twenty eight prized Standardbred horses, authorities rule it arson. Insurance investigator Callie Oaks knows the fire wasn’t random. Raised in the harness racing world, Callie goes undercover at the track, posing as an exercise driver to investigate suspicious insurance claims. As she digs into the tight knit backstretch community, she uncovers secrets worth killing for. From the author of “Silver Charm,” “The Sand Pounder,” “Pinto,” and “The Stallion and His Peculiar Boy.”

Someone set the fire.
Someone profited.
And when Callie gets too close to the truth, she becomes the next target.

Perfect for readers who love:

Horse racing mysteries

Arson investigations

Small-town crime fiction

Female amateur sleuth / insurance investigator thrillers

Suspense with authentic equestrian detail

Fire at the Track is a fast-paced mystery thriller packed with insider racing drama, financial deception, and high-stakes suspense.

At Liberty Racetrack, everyone has a secret.
And one of them is a killer.

Guest Post by Callie Oaks, Protagonist of Fire at the Track by M.J. Evans

What Nobody Tells You About Going Undercover in a Horse Barn

When people find out I used to be an insurance investigator, they picture stakeouts and surveillance vans, maybe a trench coat. What they never picture is 4:30 a.m., a pair of borrowed barn boots, and a filly named Sunny deciding, on our very first morning together, that she did not trust me one bit.

I can’t say I blamed her.

I’d taken on plenty of strange assignments over the years, but nothing quite like this one. Twenty-eight horses had died in a fire at Liberty Racetrack, and my boss, knowing my childhood was spent on a Standardbred farm, wanted someone on the inside — someone the trainers and owners wouldn’t clam up around the way they would around a uniformed investigator or a fire marshal. So, I became Haylie Norr, experienced exercise driver, fresh off a farm in Ohio, and I reported to Barn 6 with a new name, a new résumé, and absolutely no illusions about how hard this was going to be.

Here’s the thing they don’t tell you: undercover work in a racing barn isn’t about blending into a crowd. It’s about blending into a family. The people at Liberty didn’t just work alongside their horses — they lived and breathed them. Wins were shared. Losses were shared. And a stranger asking too many questions, even gently, gets noticed fast. I learned quickly that the fastest way to earn trust wasn’t to ask questions at all. It was to show up early, muck a stall without being asked, and let a horse decide whether I was worth leaning into.

Sunny decided that on day two. It wasn’t dramatic — she just stopped pinning her ears when I approached and pressed her nose into my shoulder while I worked a knot out of her mane. That was the whole negotiation. Horses don’t care what name is on your paperwork. They care whether your hands are steady and your voice is calm, and that turned out to be the best lesson I carried into the rest of the investigation. People, as it turns out, aren’t so different. Everyone in that barn was carrying something — a marriage strained by vet bills, a debt to the wrong kind of man, a grudge nursed for years — and most of it never would have surfaced if I’d walked in with a badge instead of a pitchfork.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to get an entire racing community to open up to a stranger — and what it costs when they finally do — I hope you’ll saddle up with me in Fire at the Track. Just don’t expect Sunny to trust you on the first morning either. Nobody gets that lucky.

Fire at the Track, the first book in the Harness Racing Mystery series, is available now from Dancing Horse Press.

About M.J. Evans

M.J. Evans is the award-winning author of twenty six published works spanning middle-grade, young adult, and adult fiction, as well as a selection of picture books. Her writing often explores themes centered around horses and equine fantasy, reflecting a lifelong passion for these remarkable animals. A graduate of Oregon State University and a former educator with experience teaching both middle and high school students, Ms. Evans brings both educational insight and storytelling flair to her work. She resides in beautiful Colorado with her husband, Tom, where they enjoy the company of their horses and Standard Poodle. She is the proud mother of five and grandmother of thirteen.

M.J. Evans was the recipient of the 2024 Colorado Authors League Lifetime Achievement Award.

Literary awards include: Chanticleer International Book Awards Readers’ Favorite International Awards Eric Hoffer Awards Nautilus Awards Literary Classics awards Literary Global Book Awards Feathered Quill Book Awards Purple Dragonfly Awards Royal Dragonfly Awards Page Turner Award Next Generation Award Global Book Awards CIPA Evvy Book Awards Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards Incipere Book Awards International Impact Book Awards Maincrest Media Book Awards Book Excellence Awards Mom’s Choice Awards

Author Links

Website: www.dancinghorsepress.com.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4496514.M J Evans

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/m-j-evans 273

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/M.-J.-Evans/e/B004GMS014

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/margi.evans.98

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mjevansbooks/

Purchase links:
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