The Never Game

Jeffrey Deaver has written many thrillers with different heroes, but The Never Game introduces a new one, Colter Shaw. He is not a cop, nor a private eye; he makes a living collecting reward money for finding missing persons.

He's an intriguing character. We get a lot of description of his background, which is being raised by a conspiracy-minded survivalist, which has its benefits when it comes to taking care of one's self. Shaw is also not given to levity--more than one character is determined to make him smile--and his mind works in an interesting way, breaking down situations into percentages."Never adopt a strategy or approach a task without assigning percentages. Never assign a percentage until you have as many facts as possible."

For this adventure he's in Silicon Valley to find a kidnapped woman. There will be more kidnappings, and Shaw figures out that the perpetrator is mimicking a video game--he leaves his victims with five useful objects and they have a time limit to escape or be killed. 

Shaw teams with a detective (thrillers with amateur sleuths are always problematic about law enforcement allowing them to interfere, but The Never Game handles this smoothly) and gets into the world of video game companies--he doesn't play them, and neither do I, so Deaver is skillful at weaving in exposition.

This book is the best kind of thriller. Reading it is like eating potato chips. The chapters are short, and usually end with a cliffhanger, so you say I'll just read one more, and end up reading five. Their is also a twist I didn't see coming (along with a flash forward). It also ends with a lead-in to the next book, which is kind of ditty pool. I may just read the next one to get to the bottom of the next mystery.