Split Decision: A Starlite Lanes Mystery

by J.P. Lane

A stranger bowls a perfect 300, pays cash, and walks out wearing a dead man’s shoes.

It’s June in Hollis Gap, and Starlite Lanes is finally having a quiet summer. Then, during the Tuesday afternoon seniors league, a man nobody recognizes rolls twelve strikes in a row on lane 4. He’s wearing the red-and-black shoes of Hank Ostrowski, the senior league legend who died in February. Earl, who has bowled at Starlite since opening night, swears Hank was buried in those shoes.

The stranger leaves a message for Vince Marrone says it wasn’t a foul.

By Friday morning, Vince is dead in his car at St. Mary’s cemetery, parked beside Hank’s grave.

The police call it a heart attack. Frankie DeLuca isn’t so sure. In 1985, Vince lost the county Masters final at Starlite on a single foul call. Three officials decided it, the vote was 2–1, and one of them was Frankie’s father. Vince called it a fix, left town, and never bowled competitively again. Now he’s come home to settle it, and someone made sure he never could.

Walt won’t talk about that night. The old-timers all remember it differently. And Frankie is afraid of what she’ll learn about her dad.

Split Decision is the second Starlite Lanes Mystery, a small-town whodunit with a forty-year-old grudge and a dry sense of humor.

188 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication October 28, 2026

About the author

J.P. Lane was born and raised in Jamaica where she spent her early adult years. Since then, she's lived in London, Southeast Asia, Puerto Rico, and Miami where she was an award-winning writer for The Miami Herald's marketing division. J.P. now resides in rural north Florida not far from the Suwannee River. A history buff and former fashion designer, she blogs about fashion history. She's an avid advocate for wildlife and environmental protection.