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Nightwalker

Review

Nightwalker

Jessy Sparhawk is a Vegas showgirl who prefers not to spend time
gambling. When she finds herself in need of money, she sets all her
misgivings aside and bets her savings hoping lady luck will stop by
her table. She needs to double her money to keep her grandfather
safe and happy in a retirement home, and desperately wants to come
through for the man who has cared for her since her parents died
when she was a child. Fortunately, her numbers hit, but she soon
finds that her luck has a dark side when a man she doesn't know
walks into the casino and literally dies on top of her. He whispers
one word to her before expiring --- indigo.

When she sees the ghost of the dead man, Tanner Green, she
starts worrying about her own sanity, but does her best to convince
herself that it's just stress from the ordeal. To add another level
to her now very complicated life, her grandfather keeps talking
about ghost dancers he sees in the walls and the sky, which causes
her more distress over his failing mental state and age. Jessy
wants to write it off as stories from his childhood on the Lakota
reservation, but even she has trouble convincing herself of that
theory.

A few days after the events at the casino, she heads back to
work hoping a change of scenery will calm her nerves when the ghost
she convinced herself she wasn't seeing suddenly appears at her
show. She starts to wonder seriously about her mental state, which
becomes more ragged when she is almost hit by an onstage prop at
her show. Her friends believe it's an attempt on her life, but she
prefers to believe it was just an accident. Luckily for Jessy,
Dillon Wolf, a private investigator working the Tanner Green murder
case, among other things, wants to help her. While Jessy tried her
best to ignore feelings for him after their first meeting the night
of Green’s murder, she soon finds herself drawn to him more
each day.

Dillon also has a secret to share with Jessy --- he is a
nightwalker, an individual who can see and interact with ghosts.
She opens up to him and shares what she can. He believes she must
help Green in order for him to move on and her nightmare to be
over. Unfortunately, more events are in play than either Jessy or
Dillon are aware of, and they find they will have more than just
one ghost, and person, to save in the end.

Heather Graham’s books have a wonderful paranormal quality
to them, always reminding the reader there is something out there
even when it can’t be seen. NIGHTWALKER follows the same
model, providing the audience with a look into the past through the
eyes of the generally unseen. Her characters and their new-found
apparitions have a way of drawing the reader in to experience the
sorrows and mysteries that hold the ghosts to a bygone world.

The Native American background that Graham attributes to her
characters adds to the story, lending it a very mystical feel. She
weaves in just enough history to make the ghosts seem plausible. In
fact, the history of a few of the ghosts is so interesting you wish
they were bigger players.

While the story is set in Las Vegas, a good portion of the
action takes place in a ghost town in the desert with a long and
unhappy history. The events that occur in this forgotten town bring
together the characters for an ending that closes doors not just in
the present but also in the past.

Reviewed by Amy Gwiazdowski on January 13, 2011

Nightwalker
by Heather Graham

  • Publication Date: April 1, 2009
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Mira
  • ISBN-10: 0778326373
  • ISBN-13: 9780778326373