The Hunting Camp

The Hunting Camp
DEAD END: A Clearwater Valley Thriller Series | Book #9

OPENING MORNING WAS SUPPOSED TO BEGIN WITH ELK. INSTEAD, A BODY IS HANGING FROM THE MEAT POLE.

Deep in Idaho’s Clearwater Valley, Elk Horn Camp should be alive with rifle checks, steaming coffee, fresh tracks, and the anticipation of another hunting season. But when Deputy Rob Durham and Game Warden Jerry Smith enter the remote backcountry, they discover a hunting camp transformed into something far more sinister.

The radios are being jammed. Hidden surveillance watches the trails. Armed men control the mountain. Escape routes are disappearing beneath worsening weather.  And the hunters are not hunting animals.

They are hunting people.

Cut off from Sheriff Buck Chamberlain and the rescuers desperately trying to reach them, Rob and Jerry uncover evidence of an organized human-hunting operation built around money, secrecy, controlled access, and the brutal isolation of the wilderness. A hidden trophy shed suggests Elk Horn Trail has been keeping terrible secrets far longer than anyone realized.

Then betrayal changes everything.

Wounded, freezing, bleeding, and isolated from help, Rob is forced into a fight where every decision carries a price. His injured shoulder limits his strength. Cold and blood loss steal time. The men pursuing him know the terrain and have equipment designed to find prey in darkness. When Rob captures a thermal visor and a compound bow, the balance begins to shift, but survival will demand more than weapons.

It will demand that he outthink the men who paid to hunt him.

Below the communications blackout, Buck Chamberlain faces another nightmare. He has personnel, rescue teams, and resources, but he cannot hear the people who need them. As the storm closes around Elk Horn Trail, Buck must prepare for the moment the dead air breaks and hope there is still someone alive to rescue.

By the time the pursuit reaches Elk Horn Overlook, Rob has been pushed beyond exhaustion. One final hunter stands between him and survival. Behind them waits a canyon. Beneath their boots, a narrow shelf of crumbling shale leaves almost no room for error.  Rob still wears a badge.  And even after being hunted, wounded, and betrayed, the law still matters.

The Hunting Camp is Book #9 in DEAD END: A Clearwater Valley Thriller Series, a rural law-enforcement thriller packed with backcountry suspense, wilderness survival, cold-weather danger, hidden criminal infrastructure, and an escalating investigation into Joseph Silver’s network. The mystery stands on its own while deepening the larger battle spreading across Clearwater Valley.

Why You’ll Love This Book

• A terrifying reversal where experienced hunters become human prey
• A wounded deputy fighting to survive through skill, patience, and determination
• Remote Idaho wilderness suspense where snow, cliffs, timber, and isolation become weapons
• A high-stakes investigation involving surveillance, communications jamming, and concealed evidence
• Loyalty, sacrifice, betrayal, and devastating loss that permanently changes the sheriff’s department
• A growing connection to Joseph Silver and the criminal network tightening around Clearwater Valley

Perfect for Readers Who Enjoy

• Rural sheriff and law-enforcement thrillers
• Wilderness survival and backcountry suspense
• Manhunt, pursuit, and hunted-by-hunters thrillers
• Small-town mysteries hiding much larger criminal conspiracies

Elk Horn Trail was built to keep outsiders away. The people behind the hunt believed money could buy privacy, silence, and a mountain where ordinary laws no longer applied.  They made one mistake.

They left a deputy alive.

Enter Elk Horn country in The Hunting Camp, where the next shot may come from anywhere, the radio may never answer, and surviving the hunt is only the beginning.