Nightwalkers

by P.T. Deutermann

Book Overview

Cam Richter, needing a break from his too-eventful detective?career, is in search of more peaceful pastures in the North Carolina countryside. He buys a seven hundred acre ante-bellum plantation, but it doesn't take long for him to discover that his new locale is not as quiet as he'd hoped. Almost immediately, Cam finds himself caught up in mischievous pranks around his land, the site of a Civil War-era massacre. When the pranks turn hostile, however,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312372418
• ISBN13: 9780312372415
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

No one writes better than Deutermann!!!!!!

This book should be number 1 on the New York Times BestSeller list. I dare anyone to read and say different. If you can find a better story or a better character than the Major, then you have really have found something special. NightWalkers, best book of the year.

Reviewing: "Nightwalkers: A Novel" by P. T. Deutermann

It began with "The Cat Dancers" and now in this fourth book, Cam Richter needs a break. "Hide and Seek Investigations" is doing well and the events of "The Moonpool" case are finally beginning to fade somewhat. Cam is tired of living in Triboro and tired of the tedium of the usual cases the company has going. Unlike Sharon McCone in "Burn Out" (written by Marcia Muller) he isn't depressed or anything like that. Cam Richter has always done best when he has had a challenge and these days he needs a new challenge and a change of scenery. He may have found both with his purchase of "Glory's End." A sprawling antebellum plantation of 700 acres located on the banks of the Dan River in North Carolina that also happens to be home to a Civil War massacre. History that hasn't ever changed for some of his neighbors and is just as powerful today as then. Their ways are very strange to Cam and he has to adjust to their expectations as well as changing a few of his own. Cam has another problem that takes a higher priority over the home renovation project. Renovation of the plantation home could take years. He won't have that time if ex-con Billie Ray Breen follows through on his often made threats to get even. Billie Ray Breen unfortunately survived the shoot out with Cam years ago and the nasty piece of work is getting early release from prison. Before long, "Glory's End" becomes the site of a psychological and occasional shooting war as Cam deals with the past in more ways than one. Vendettas are an age old theme of the human race and its literature and that idea is worked well here. This fourth in the series sheds little new light on the Cam Richter character or for that matter any of his team from "Hide and Seek Investigations." Instead, much like what James Lee Burke often does in his Dave Robicheaux novels, the primary focus is on the past. The past becomes a character in its own right and that certainly is true here. "Glory's End" officially established in 1838 has had a long and storied history as has the surrounding North Carolina and Virginia countryside. There is literally blood in the land and the land still draws blood in this modern age. Deutermann brings that Civil War past to life and pays homage to it while at the same time not celebrating the heinous aspects of it. Along the way, he populates the book with a complex mystery that is obvious only in a couple of spots, plenty of action and intrigue, along with fully formed realistic characters engaged in their lives. The result is another very good book in a series that one hopes is not ending but branching off into a new direction for Cam and his dogs. Kevin R. Tipple (copyright) 2009

Deutermann Continues To Deliver Thoughtful Thrillers

P.T. Deutermann continues as a must-read author for me and I am surprised that his work is not more reviewed. His four Cam Richter novels deliver the same well written, engrossing story lines as just about anyone in the suspense/thriller genre today. Certainly Richter as a protagonist is as fun to read, and as intriguing and capable as Dave Robicheux, Jack Reacher, and Doc Ford. And, for animal lovers, Cam is capably assisted in each adventure by his ever present well-trained and loyal German shepherd dogs. In "Nightwalkers", Cam is still searching for his destiny and place in life. He decides to abandon the city life to buy a 700 hundred acre ante-bellum plantation in his beloved North Carolina countryside. He is quickly introduced to the eccentricities of rural life in a part of the South that still remembers the Civil War as a recent event. His neighbors and potential landlords across the street (The Lee family) seem stuck in the ante-bellum era including costume, manners, and lifestyle. There is a deep back history that includes a Civil War era massacre that occurred on Cam's potential land, a Confederate era scandal involving his new neighbors, and a crazed Lee family member (The Major) who rides the countryside at night hunting Yankee spies. Cam no sooner begins to settle in while digesting all this Old South vs. New South conflict when he finds himself exposed to a series of pranks and threats of violence from a mystery person who wants him dead for unknown reasons. Initially he thinks he has acquired a "ghost", a term for a released prisoner who becomes a revenge seeking stalker; however, the threat of violence soon heats up until the past and the present catch up with Cam as he decides whether to pursue the bucolic life the plantation offers or to return to the city--a decision that must wait until he sorts through the craziness surrounding his land, discovers his stalker, and decides on his feelings for a new woman in his life. As usual, Deutermann's novel is tightly plotted, exciting, fast-paced, and filled with challenging mysteries. While his very able canine helpers, Frick, Frack, and now Kitty are ever present, their roles are more subdued in this installment; nonetheless, the interaction between Cam and his canine companions is something to enjoy and marvel. For those who have not discovered P.T Deutermann or his signature character, Cam Richter, I highly recommend this great series.

Cam wins again

Pete Deutermann again delivers a mystery story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The solution of the mytery proceeds like the unpealing of an onion until the last 10 or so pages when the kernel of the mystery is revealed. I've read all od P.T. Deutermann's books and they continue to uphold the quality found in the beginning novels in terms of structure and story!

super novel

PT Deutermann is a fantastic writer and this novel is no exception - kept me going into the whee hours of the a.m. reading this exciting novel.