"Pole Pedal Murder" author Ted Haynes at Little Lava Lake.

If you missed the May return of the Pole Pedal Paddle after a two-year absence, July 12 will offer another spin on the popular multi-sport race: That’s when “Pole Pedal Murder,” the fourth book in part-time local author Ted Haynes’ Northwest Murder Mystery series, will see the light of day.

Haynes’ other books in the series include “The Mirror Pond Murders” and “The Mt. Bachelor Murders,” and his newest mystery is also set amid a Central Oregon landmark, or at least a landmark event: the PPP, the annual race from Mt. Bachelor to and on the Deschutes River. Its plot involves two killings, each of the victims having ties to the PPP: The first victim is prize-winning cross-country skier Wendy Whitlock, whose all-woman team must disband in the wake of her killing, then goes Samuel Dee, a physician at the orthopedics center where Wendy had worked. Samuel’s killing during the title event is a tough case to crack for sheriff’s detective Carl Breuninger and attorney/amateur sleuth Sarah Chatham, the lawyer (and recurring character) hired by Wendy shortly before her death.

Haynes, retired after an electronics and marketing career in Silicon Valley, told Explore he launched the series because he wanted to write about Central Oregon, where he lives on the Little Deschutes part of the year, and because the structure of murder mysteries appeals to him.

“When you’re writing a literary novel, you can go in a thousand different directions, and you can get a little lost, or at least I can,” he said. “A mystery, you know there has to be a murder at the beginning, and somebody has to solve it at the end.”

The book is dedicated to two people, a recently deceased friend and reader named Andi Northcote, and Molly Cogswell-Kelley, director of events for Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, which puts on the PPP.

“She was very helpful and very quick” when he posed questions to her, Haynes said. “Lots of people I talked to about the race and about the book just sang her praises.”

After observing this year’s PPP in person, he came to appreciate the many levels of community involvement, from the elite athletes trying to win to the locals and others who are just having fun.

“It’s really kind of a community thing,” he said. “A lot of the community gets involved in it or knows about it or cares about it or knows somebody in it, so I thought that was pretty central to Bend and sporting life in Bend. He set his latest amid the PPP because “it’s the premier sporting event event in Bend,” he said.

Haynes’ fifth book in the series will be set in Sunriver. In the meantime, “Pole Pedal Murder” will be available July 12 in local bookstores as well as barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. For more info on Haynes and his books, visit tedhaynes.com.