- this large print edition published by Gale 2019
- ISBN 978-1-4328-6339-5
- 598 pages
- source: my local library
- #1 in the Colter Shaw series
The first novel in a thrilling new series.
Colter Shaw is an itinerate “reward-seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. When he learns of a reward for a missing college student in Silicon Valley, he takes the job. The investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of Silicon Valley and the cutthroat billion-dollar video gaming industry–and then a second kidnapping happens…and this victim turns up dead.
The clues soon point to one video game, The Never Game, in which the player has to survive after being left abandoned. Is a madman bringing that game to life? If so, Shaw has to stop him before he strikes again…and before he figures out that Shaw is on his trail.
My take:
A young woman goes missing and her father puts up a reward for her recovery. Soon after Shaw finds her, her boy friend is shot dead, and then another person goes missing. This time the kidnapped person does not survive.
The investigation takes Shaw into the heart of the video gaming industry and into Silicon Valley, where he learns what the NBT (next big thing) is.
A thread that runs through the story is what happened to Shaw's father 15 years earlier. Frustratingly this thread is left open to be continued in the next book in the series, to be published in 2020. A lot of the book is taken up with reminiscences about Ashton Shaw and allusions to his philosophy.
In the book, confusingly, the video game behind the kidnappings is called The Whispering Man, and The Never Game has a slightly different connotation.
My rating: 4.1
I've also read
4.2, EDGE
4.8, NINTH AND NOWHERE
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