Colter Shaw, the freelance bounty hunter who debuted in The Never Game (2019), infiltrates a cult masquerading as a grief support group. Despite the usual hard-nosed competition from his rival, Dalton Crowe, Shaw has no trouble locating suspected neo-Nazis Adam Harper and Erick Young, sought for burning a cross on the grounds of a church, and turning them over to the police. That's when everything goes sideways, for the law in this case is so lawless that Adam would rather kill himself than be arrested, and Erick narrowly escapes with his life. Troubled enough to look into the fugitives' histories, Shaw is led to the Osiris Foundation, a for-profit enclave in the mountains of Washington, which had clearly changed Adam's life. Turning the hefty reward the Western Washington Ecumenical Council had offered for their apprehension over to Erick's parents, Shaw goes underground as Carter Skye, enrolling in the Process™ developed by Osiris founder and director Master Eli, ne David Ellis. He quickly finds himself mired in an isolated cult in which paramilitary bodyguards support a leader who has every flaw you'd expect from his role. The thrills that follow are authentic, but the attempt to weave this plot together with Shaw's continuing quest for the truth about his survivalist father's last months is surprisingly awkward, and the use of four separate scenes in which characters you thought were dead spring back to life suggests that the boundlessly inventive Deaver may be running low on new tricks. Not the best Deaver to offer friends you are hoping to get as firmly hooked as you are. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The second Colter Shaw novel is even better than the first (The Never Game, 2019). Having dispensed with the first novel's introductory scene setting--we now know Shaw makes his living tracking down missing people in order to claim the rewards--Deaver jumps right into the story. Shaw is on the trail of two young men who are apparently fleeing from hate-crime charges; he's close to bringing them in when the situation suddenly goes sideways, and Shaw finds himself on the run from local law enforcement, the only person standing between one of the young men and near-certain death. Shaw discovers there's a lot more to the story than he knew, and the only way to get to the truth is to adopt a false identity and confront a mysterious cult in Washington State. It's no surprise that the story has a lot of moving parts and just the right amount of twists and turns (Deaver's reputation as a master of the corkscrewing plot is well earned), and fans of the author's Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance novels will note the same attention to character construction and natural-sounding dialogue here. Colter Shaw seems certain to become an enduring series lead.

Bestseller Deaver's outstanding sequel to 2019's The Never Game takes professional reward seeker Colter Shaw to Washington State in pursuit of the bounty offered for information leading to the apprehension of Adam Harper and Erick Young, who are accused of first burning a cross on a church lawn and then shooting two people. Shaw's superior tracking skills enable him to locate Harper and Young, but the encounter ends with a disturbing suicide. Shaw's pursuit of the reason for the suicide leads him to the Osiris Foundation, a shadowy organization that promises those who attend its three-week course "a happy and contented life." The investigator's suspicions about Osiris increase after he discovers that a reporter who'd mentioned it in an article about cults was murdered, supposedly by a hold-up man who was subsequently shot to death by the police. Deaver balances suspense and plausibility perfectly as he depicts Shaw's efforts to infiltrate Osiris and learn the truth. This is a perfect jumping-on point for readers new to one of today's top contemporary thriller writers. Author tour. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (May)

Colter Shaw was raised by a survivalist father and a psychiatrist mother and employs both skill sets in his career as a "rewardist," a tracker who finds people for an offered reward. His latest case is looking for two young suspects in a hate crime in Washington State. The job goes tragically wrong and ends with one of the suspects killing himself. Shaw is determined to find out why, and in his inquires discovers the young man was a member of the Osiris Foundation, a cult masquerading as a self-help group. Shaw signs himself up for their program, an intensive three-week "process" at a remote mountainside camp, and poses as a troubled soul trying to make right. He quickly finds favor with their charismatic leader, Master Eli, who is a sadistic charlatan selling a very lethal method of self-improvement. The tensions grow and Shaw realizes he must end the spell cast on the followers before more deaths occur. VERDICT While not as dynamic as the first in the series (The Never Game), this will still find fans with those who enjoyed the first book and for Deaver fans in general. [See Prepub Alert, 10/28/19.]--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI