The Never Game

"You have been abandoned."
A young woman has gone missing in Silicon Valley and her father has hired Colter Shaw to find her. The son of a survivalist family, Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a "reward seeker," traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. But what seems a simple investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of America's tech hub and the cutthroat billion-dollar video-gaming industry.
"Escape if you can."
When another victim is kidnapped, the clues point to one video game with a troubled past--The Whispering Man. In that game, the player has to survive after being abandoned in an inhospitable setting with five random objects. Is a madman bringing the game to life?
"Or die with dignity."
Shaw finds himself caught in a cat-and-mouse game, risking his own life to save the victims even as he pursues the kidnapper across both Silicon Valley and the dark 'net. Encountering eccentric game designers, trigger-happy gamers and ruthless tech titans, he soon learns that he isn't the only one on the hunt: someone is on his trail and closing fast.



My Review

When I read the premise for this book I got very excited. I was really looking forward to reading this book due to the "gamer" elements. In fact, I was hoping that this book would be a mash up of Ready Player One meets Saw. A gamer book with some horror type elements but more mystery. Sadly, I did not experience this during my time reading this book.

Colter is a good leading man. This is a good thing as he will be the feature in this new series from author, Mr.  Deaver. Part of the problem I had with this book is that there were a lot of characters thrown at me very quickly; I hardly had any time to familiarize myself with them.

Additionally, The Whispering Man was kind of a whisper. Maybe it was me but I felt like his presence was not as strong as it could have been. Yet, the pacing did make up some of the low points. This was a fast read.