The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 416 pages, $28

Are you now or have you ever been a gamer? Do you now sit or have you ever sat in a dank basement or on a rumpled bed or lumpy couch, surrounded by old crusty food, with the lights dimmed and played an RPG or VR game, or even Wii Fitness? Are you now fantasizing or have you ever fantasized about writing code with the big guns in Silicon Valley? Are you just a regular person who likes to play games every once in a while? Are you someone with gaming habits somewhere in-between? (Does that cover everyone except the never-evers, nuh-uhs, ain’t-gonna-plays?) Then this book is for you.

Colter Shaw is a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He grew up in a compound in the California wilderness. He learned all sorts of useful skills: hunting, climbing, surviving the elements, tracking. Was it some sort of “Deliverance” thing, as one of the characters suggests? In fact, both Colter’s parents were academics who took to the woods with their three children for reasons Colter is still trying to understand. After his father died under suspicious circumstances, Colter began an earnest effort to figure out if his father was crazy as a loon or crazy like a fox.

Colter now lives in the modern world, and he uses all his skills to solve problems for which people have offered rewards. He chooses his cases carefully. He is a bounty hunter who refuses that title. Jeffery Deaver does a skilfull job of gradually revealing who Colter is and how he processes his cases. I think Deaver delights in imbuing his character with interesting quirks. For instance, Colter is a percentage, calculate-the-odds kind of guy with small, neat handwriting. He rarely smiles, except for his nieces. He has a home in Florida but travels around in a Winnebago to solve cases across the country. The Winnebago is his version of Jack Reacher’s toothbrush.

The latest case he decides to solve is that of a missing nineteen-year-old college student, Sophie Mulliner. Although she has been gone only a short time, her father is frantic. The police have been less than helpful (or there wouldn’t be a story). Of course, Colter finds her and in the process finds a bigger mystery. Five items were left for Sophie to help her escape her confinement. And a stencil of an odd-looking businessman was left nearby.

Suddenly, the police, specifically Detective LaDonna Standish, are interested in Colter. Also interested in Colter — for a different reason — is rad, tatted, eccentric Maddie Poole. She is a gamer and introduces Colter to that culture in a big way, by taking him to the latest gamer con. He meets a couple of big names in the game industry, which leads to introductions to more people in the industry, which leads to the realization that the kidnapper is following an old video game format: The Whispering Man.

The eerie Whispering Man leaves his victims with five items to aid in their escape. If they cannot escape, he comes back and kills them. When the IRL kidnapper steals his second victim, Colter joins the hunt.

“The Never Game” was fast-paced, had quirky characters, interesting crimes, and a to-be-continued storyline about Colter’s father. And, seriously, you don’t have to have ever played a video game in your life or watched anyone play one or breathed the same air as someone who once played a video game, but it might assist in your enjoyment. Way to hook a reader, Jeffery Deaver!