I feel I'm unable to review this book as the electronic copy I received was full of typos. Whilst I appreciate it is an uncorrected proof I expect words to be separated and paragraphs to begin on a separate line. This spoilt my experience of this book which I did not finish. I will buy a print copy when the book is published.

Having been a long term fan of Jeffrey Deaver and his Lincoln Rhyme series I was delighted to see the start of a new series with a new protagonist.
Colter Shaw is a great new character as someone earns reward money for a living. In this story her is tracing a missing girl for her father.
His backstory of growing up in a survivalist family is heavily referenced in the book and how he uses this in his work. I love the way Shaw works out probabilities for each situation and uses this in his investigation.
As someone who is not a Computer Game fan I did struggle with this part of the story and found the middle section a bit of a struggle although I am sure gamers will love it..
I am glad I continued with the book as I believe that this series can only improve as the main character develops..
Can't wait for the next story.

A student is missing in Silicon Valley. Shaw decides to help solve the problem when he hears of the reward offered. Little does he know a second student will turn up missing - but this time the victim is found dead. What's the connection to a video game called The Never? Is a murderer re-enacting the game in real life? That's what Shaw intends to find out. An interesting first story in a new series. It gives Shaw's background and how he seems to have endless supplies of money. I liked the main character, even though Shaw was similar to other protagonists in previous books I've read. As a thriller, it fitted the bill although I would have liked to have had a better plot and less information about video games. The whole book needed to be tighter.

This is the first in a new series by Jeffery Deaver and a very promising start. Colter Shaw finds missing people in return for reward money, a change from the typical bounty hunter and private investigator stories. Lots of attention to detail and information on Shaw's background, a well developed character. Plenty action and twists make this a very promising new series. I would recommend this book. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC. Reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and Facebook.

A stimulating and spellbinding read - first in a brand new series - from international best-selling author of the Lincoln Rhyme books and many more.

When his daughter suddenly disappears, her father knows that she hasn't just run away. With the authorities not taking him seriously, he puts up a reward. Enter Colter Shaw, a  man who searches for missing people where there is monetary gain to be made. There are so many things he is not, but his skills are not in question; but this isn't a novel about one missing person. It's about so much more.

Colter Shaw is a protagonist like no other I've come across; his upbringing was, to say the least, unconventional. Shaw is a multi-faceted character, and although I feel as if I know him better than when I opened at the first page, I definitely get the impression that there is so much more to come. This is a superbly crafted book! A phenomenal, unpredictable read this is full of twist and turns, enigmas and revelations. I LOVED it! This is going to be a must-not miss series, and I'll be watching out for the second one. Utterly superb! It's not often I find myself absorbed in a story to the exclusion of everything else, but that is exactly what happened here - I've even consumed less coffee! Sometimes, five stars are just not enough, but that's the very best I can offer, and this one has earned each and every one of them, several times over.

My thanks to publisher Harper Collins for my copy via NetGalley. All opinions given here are entirely my own.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first novel in Deaver's new series featuring Colter Shaw.
I really enjoyed this novel - it has all the usual Deaver twists and turns which I can never guess. I think I just didn't love it because of the new protagonist and because we don't really know him properly. Reading a Lincoln Rhyme novel is like catching up with an old friend. But I'm sure after a few outings for Shaw, I'll start loving this series too.

I'm a bit torn about this book in some ways, as it tells a really great story, has some unexpected twists and turns, a satisfying ending that left me wanting more, but as an avid gamer, it misses some beats in depicting the gaming world and culture in general.

However, I was easily able to overlook this, as a cast of memorable characters and a well constructed plot meant that I read through this pretty quickly, and was not able to figure out the 'bad guys' before the reveal. The beauty of a twist reveal like this is when it comes as a complete shock, but fits perfectly logically in the context of everything that has come before it.

I'm intrigued to know what happens next with the overarching plot concerning the central character, and would recommend this to anyone who likes a well written thriller. Just leave any over zealous gaming content critiques at home, and enjoy the novel for what it presents.

Jeffery Deaver introduces a new character and a new series in this book. Colter Shaw is a "people hunter" with a conscience. His character is complex and mysterious. We are given some insight into his background as a child of academics who were survivalists.. Colter uses percentages to work out his next steps and I found this fascinating.
I have only two criticisms of this book:
It is partly set in the world of "gamers" - this was interesting but at times I found it too technical and skipped those parts
The typos/grammar in quite a lot of the book was irritating e.g. boy'd
However, I did enjoy it and would recommend it and will look out for the next in the series.

‘Love, Colter Shaw had learned, could be an endlessly refillable prescription of madness’

The Never Game is the first novel in new Colter Shaw series by award-winning author Jeffery Deaver. I must admit, that this was my first book from this author, although I watched the Bone Collector movie based on his book. I was intrigued by the book’s description. The action is based in Silicon Valley, where mysterious criminal put his victims into survival scenarios based on some video game. As a gaming nerd I was intrigued right away!
Colter Shaw is not a policeman nor a private detective, but he does help police or civilians track down people for rewards. And he is very good in his job. Raised by paranoid father, he got a perfect training for survival in wilderness, tracking and handling weapons. He is also very good in problem solving. Before tackling a case, he gathers as much information as he can and then considers all possible scenarios assigning them percentage of probability.
When he agrees to help desperate father to find his daughter, he has no idea how complicated the case will get. It quickly turns out, that kidnapper is extremely well organized and elusive. To track him down Colter will have to learn more about video game business, their products and gamers.
I really enjoyed reading this book. The intrigue was not easy to solve and characters where struggling a lot before their finally found the person responsible for all the crimes. There were also some twists and turns along the way. Author has done extensive research about video games and their history. At the end of the book he listed all the books he used for references and it is a lot! I liked all those little games trivia, because for me the topic is interesting, but I’m not sure if everyone will appreciate it.
I also liked Shaw himself. He is very rational, composed and very resourceful person. He’s not only a mercenary for hire. He only takes the cases that interest him, and mostly because of his desire to help unfortunate and helpless victims. He is also smart and not afraid of taking risks. There is also a bigger story here, connected with some Shaw’s family secrets, but we don’t learn much about it in this book, although it is clearly said it will be continuing in sequels.
I don’t read a lot of mystery and thrillers books, but I enjoyed reading them occasionally. The Never Game is a good book to spend few evenings with. Especially gamers will find it very appealing. I’m not sure yet what case Colter Shaw will pursue in next books, but I think I’ll gladly meet him again.

I've been a huge fan of Deaver’s work over the years, I like that he develops slightly off-the-wall baddies and as a result his stories are often quite quirky. There are always plenty of twists too, enough to prevent me from guessing the ending at any rate (OK, that's actually not too hard as I virtually never work out an ending). Most recently, his Lincoln Rhyme series has held me captive, but I've avoided the last couple of books as I was beginning to tire of the format. So I was delighted to see that with this book he’s introduced a new hunter of unsubs, a fresh solver of crimes. Colter Shaw looks for opportunities to earn rewards offered for missing persons and the like. He's not a registered PI but he operates along similar lines and uses a small back-up team to help him track down such opportunities and to provide additional information as his investigations progress.

A student has gone missing in Silicon Valley and her father is offering up a $10,000 reward – right up Colter’s street. And as he gets into the detail of what he suspects is a kidnapping he notices that developments seem to be tracking events featured in a video game. Soon Colter finds himself embroiled in intrigue involving the multi-billion dollar gaming industry… and now a second case has raised its head.

I quickly grew to enjoy spending time with Deaver’s new front man: he’s clever (of course), has a dry wit and an interesting background, involving a troubled brother and a survivalist father who thought him many of the skills he now deploys. Towards the end of this book the author sets the scene for book two - I'm hooked already, line me up for the second instalment. I'm not quite wowed enough to award this one five stars – a slow section in the middle of the book being the culprit - but it's an easy four star offering and I have a feeling that I’ll be tuning in to tales featuring Colter Shaw for some time to come.

A New Beginning: The Never Game by Jeffrey Deaver
Many thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this novel in advance.

Arthur Conan Doyle once grew so sick of writing about Sherlock Holmes that he killed him off. The greatest detective in the world accosted his arch enemy Prof Moriarty literally on a cliff edge overhanging Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland and after a furious tussle they both apparently fell to their deaths.

Happily, insofar as we know, Lincoln Rhyme is still alive and well in his New York apartment overlooking Central Park. But his author has decamped from East Coast to West and is focusing on a new character. This has always been a tough gig. Deaver has attempted this before with the character of Kathryn Dance, an expert in kinesics, the study of human movement and gestures, Kathryn never really worked for me.

Does Colter Shaw, the protagonist of The Never Game? Colter is one of the three children of a survivalist family headed by two former university professors brought up and home-schooled in an isolated estate in the Californian wilderness. He is an expert tracker and he makes his living by collecting rewards for finding disappeared people. We are soon told that he is not to be confused with a bounty hunter. The apparent kidnapping of a young female student following an argument with her father sets Colter up against a criminal mastermind of his own. Soon dubbed "The Gamer" this miscreant seems to be recreating with his victims the scenarios involved in an old survivalist-type game where the player is left in a hostile location with a certain set of objects as his/her only means of escape. Set exclusively in California, the plot has all the twists and turns you have come to expect from Deaver.

Unfortunately, I have to say I found Colter unconvincing and unlovable.Home-schooled almost in isolation in the wilderness yet he's completely au fait with modern gadgetry? Ah, but his parents were professors! He knows a massive amount about culture and psychology? Well, they had a library, you see... Sorry Jeff but I ain't buying.

As for his personality... Well... Um... He doesn't really have much of one. At first I thought one of the reveals would be that Colter is autistic he was so much of a blank slate, well it wasn't. Damn. Lincoln may be in a wheelchair but he oozes personality, I especially like his occasional musings on "crips" as he calls himself, his disability, his arrogance and his attempts to get at the whiskey. Entirely absent in Colter.

Don't get me wrong, Deaver is a good writer, the twists and turns of the story made this novel go down quick but I couldn't help missing Lincoln or any other personality come to that. There is only one thing that might be the hook that'll make me pick up the next Colter Shaw book, the family mystery of who killed his father and why.

4.5 stars.
I had a brief introduction to Deaver's newest character, Colter Shaw, in his short debut Captivated. He's a reward hunter, which is basically what it says on the tin. He travels the country helping both Police and private citizens solve crimes when they are struggling, or not being heard. In this, his first proper outing, his interest is piqued when he hears that a father is offering money to find his missing daughter. The police appearing to have no interest in the case. But what starts out as a missing person soon develops into high intrigue as more people vanish and he is drawn into the expanding, and very lucrative, field of gaming. But that's not all, as Shaw has his own backstory, his own personal investigation going on and the lines between that and the case he is on start to blur to the extent that he isn't sure who is gunning for him in return...
Part of this book is taken up with a lot of background into Shaw's past. His childhood growing up with a survivalist father in a remote setting. Although necessary for character background, development and to explain why and how he does what he does now, I did find some of it distracting and kept forgetting where we were in the main story a bit. One of the things I did like from his past, his upbringing, was the way he allocates percentages to scenarios which did redress the balance somewhat along the way.
As you would expect from Deaver, there are twists and turn aplenty, all delivered with aplomb. As well as an intricate, interconnected plot that, at times, left me breathless. I'm not a gamer but Deaver has obviously done his research into this world and presents his findings in an interesting and easy to follow way. And the ending, when it came, was wholly satisfying, albeit it with some scope for future expansion.
Shaw is complex and, as such, is an extremely interesting character. Even with what we learn from this book, it's obvious that there is much more to learn about him. At times it felt like we were only just scratching the surface of the man himself and I for one can't wait to reconnect with him and delve further. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I catergorise Jeffery Deaver's books into two sets; the Lincolm Rhyme thrillers and the thrillers where he focuses on a different character who has some sort of interesting talent or unique schtick which makes them interesting.

This book is one of the latter category.

Colter Shaw is a survivalist and private investigator (well, not exactly, but he performs the same role as a PI) whose schtick is that he assigns percentages to the odds of various risks or facts being true, and also has incredibly neat handwriting.

I liked Shaw as a character, and his survival-related activities were interesting, as was his past and his relationships. The drip-feed of facts about him through the novel was enjoyable and I found myself wanting to know more about him and his family.

The action of the novel was pretty enjoyable though the Deaver twist formula was present and accounted for. When everything is a twist, nothing really is; because we're expecting the most obvious event to be subverted, it's never surprising when it is.

I really got the impression that Deaver doesn't have direct experience of the video games world, and his portrayal of various events and facts in that space didn't read as very authentic. There were a few factual inaccuracies and blunders in the video games space and I felt that this element of the book really let it down overall.

Still, once again we have an interesting character and a gripping read here, and I'll be sure to read the next Colter Shaw book when it's released!

I have loved Jeffrey Deaver’s books For donkey’s years so was excited to be given an ARC. 55% in and I’m giving up! It in no way felt like a book written by this cherished author. I couldn’t connect to the lead character at all and he felt very two dimensional. Normally I read a book in three to four days... ten days later and I’m still struggling.........

........ It might well be just me. I am a senior and have never been a ‘Gamer’ ever. This had an impact as I struggled to follow huge passages. So maybe it will be s great book for a younger person or someone who games - whatever their age. But, with a holiday looming, this is me giving up.

# The Never Game # Netgally
Wow wow wow. I was totally engrossed in this new series from the first couple of chapters. The characters are good fast paced brilliant story line full of twist and turns. I lost myself into another Jeffrey Deavr book. Who can not appreciate his books I don't know. This man seems to have pure magic running through is novels. Everything he writes just comes to live, a pure genius, fantistic. Brilliant. Amazing. Waiting with bated breath for the second in this series. This is definitely a must must must read. You will most definitely be missing out if you do not read. I can not praise the book enough. This is my opinion and one aline, I can categorically say I have received no incentive of anyone to write this review. I would even go to far and say should anyone ever offer any favours to review any book then I genuinely would not even bother reading the book. All reviews are extremely genuinely mine I would not be influenced by anyone or anything to write a review in favour of any author of book. I would also be insulted ever to be asked that. This is Justine major brilliant book by Deaver highly recommended

Colter Shaw, a missing person's investigator with a hidden past, is tasked with finding 19-year old Sophie after she disappears one summer afternoon. Plenty of twists and turns as the reader tries to get to grips with how events have happened. A good read.

A gripping thriller typical of Deaver's works. The central protagonists are reclusive, atypical and highly intelligent gradually revealing aspects of their difficult pasts and their motivations as the plot develops. Shaw is a likeable roguish character whose upbringing within a survivalist family has grounded him whilst providing him with extraordinary instincts that he utilises to his advantage as he tracks the Whispering Man. Navigating the many plot twists, along with Deaver's characteristic narrative crafting makes this an enjoyable read. Recommended.

This is a really great read. Jeffery Deaver is a brilliant writer. Colter Shaw is a fascinating character. There is plenty of action and everything is very cleverly written. I was gripped the whole way through and would definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This isn't my first foray into the world of Jeffrey Deaver and it will certainly not be the last. Colter Shaw is a nearly created character from this master storyteller and I was gripped from the outset. The author has not presented the plot in a strict chronological order, which adds to the overall intrigue. It allows is a great way to give insight into the characters without losing the overall flow. The story has sufficient complexity to keep the reader's attention but not so complex that you get lost in a web of subplots. Colter Shaw is clearly here to stay and I look forward to reading further books in what must be a new series.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A brilliant new character for Jeffery Deaver fans.
Colter Shaw is a reward seeker. He finds people who have gone missing from errant teens to people with alzheimers to people who the authorities have given up on. Sometimes they are alive, sometimes not.
What a cracker of a read. Kept me up reading long into the night. Mr Deaver is in to a winner. Can't wait for the next book with Colter Shaw.