#KaleoGriffith – Rosepoint Publishing

The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

The first installment in Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw series. The son of a survivalist family, Colter Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a “reward seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and locate missing persons for private citizens. “You’ve been abandoned. Escape if you can. Or die with dignity.” Hired by the father of a young woman who has gone missing in Silicon Valley, Shaw’s search takes him into the dark heart of America’s cutthroat billion-dollar video-game industry. When another person goes missing, Shaw must Is a madman bringing a twisted video game to life? Encountering eccentric designers, trigger-happy gamers, and ruthless tech titans, Shaw soon learns that he isn’t the only one on the someone is on his trail and closing fast….Named a Crime Novel of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Never Game proves once more why “Deaver is a genius when it comes to manipulation and deception” (Associated Press). [Goodreads blurb]

My Review:

OMG! Are you an older person with no concept of those crazy games the kids play on their devices with all kinds of paraphernalia so they are capable of speaking to other players on the other side of the world as they wipe out all the baddies with blasters?

I joined that club some years ago and have never caught up, at one point even trying to look into a “mature” game I could likewise play.

Not going to happen.

The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver — The Never Game – US cover

The Never Game featuring Colter Shaw plunks you square into that scene and explains it in a suspenseful mystery. Mercy! Shaw is not your average game player. He was raised off-grid with his brother and sister with their survivalist parents but with keen knowledge of his environment. Now he uses his skills as a gifted forensic tracker.

Shaw is making a living “finding” people and largely taps into an apparently lucrative rewards market. He lives in a Winnebago and has a small but effective support group. It’s fun the way he works “the percentages” whether or not the mission or question is viable. In this, the first in a new series, he is drawn into the gaming world.

Okay, I loved all the insights he discovers and explains, most of which blew me away. Did I retain any of it? You know I didn’t, but it was sure fun to read. There are theories and premises that, unfortunately in the six years it’s been since this was published, are eerily becoming the world in which we now live. AI scares the devil out of me, while fascinating me as well.

Is there any romance? Just a touch for those who need that in their novels. Have you heard of The Whisper Man? (The Whispering Man?) I have. There was a 2019 movie, right? And I believe another is coming to your screens soon. Well, there is an interesting and popular game with the same basic idea…and it’s incorporated into the narrative.

Don’t take my word for it. This is a book you might have missed but shouldn’t have. Check it out.

The CE read a Deaver novella in January of this year, Downstate, and greatly enjoy it. I’m gonna have to start paying more attention. Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Thrillers, Mysteries, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B07N317FK9
Listening Length: 11 hrs 20 mins
Narrator: Kaleo Griffith
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)

Title Links: Amazon-US

Amazon-UK

The Author: Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into over twenty-five languages. He has served two terms as president of Mystery Writers of America, and was recently named a Grand Master of MWA, whose ranks include Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Mary Higgins Clark and Walter Mosely.

The author of over forty novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His “The Bodies Left Behind” was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller “The Broken Window” and a stand-alone, “Edge,” were also nominated for that prize. “The Garden of Beasts” won the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers Association in England. He’s also been nominated for eight Edgar Awards by the MWA.

Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, the Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.

October

Middletide: A Novel by Sarah Crouch #AudiobookReview #SmallTown&RuralFiction

Editors’ pick Best Books of the Year So Far 2024

In this gripping and intensely atmospheric debut, disquiet descends on a small town after the suspicious death of a beautiful young doctor, with all clues pointing to the reclusive young man who abandoned the community in chase of big city dreams but returned for the first love he left behind.

Book Blurb

One peaceful morning, in the small, Puget Sound town of Point Orchards, the lifeless body of Dr. Erin Landry is found hanging from a tree on the property of prodigal son and failed writer, Elijah Leith. Sheriff Jim Godbout’s initial investigation points to an obvious suicide, but upon closer inspection, there seem to be clues of foul play when he discovers that the circumstances of the beautiful doctor’s death were ripped straight from the pages of Elijah Leith’s own novel.

Out of money and motivation, thirty-three-year-old Elijah returns to his empty childhood home to lick the wounds of his futile writing career. Hungry for purpose, he throws himself into restoring the ramshackle cabin his father left behind and rekindling his relationship with Nakita, the extraordinary girl from the nearby reservation whom he betrayed but was never able to forget.

As the town of Point Orchards turns against him, Elijah must fight for his innocence against an unexpected foe who is close and cunning enough to flawlessly frame him for murder in this scintillating literary thriller that seeks to uncover a case of love, loss, and revenge.

My Review:

Of course, I’m drawn to a story situated in the Pacific Northwest, an area dear to my heart and this novel does provide a strong atmospheric backdrop that begins with the discovery of a body hanging from a tree on Elijah Leith’s property near Point Orchards, Washington.

Elijah has had to return to the old home he inherited from his father after a failed attempt at writing the “great American novel” which did okay until a bad review had him guessing his time and talent.

Elijah was promised to a former high school sweetheart, Nakita, from a local indigenous tribe (fictional tribe name) and failed to return at their appointed time and place. She moved on but has recently lost her husband and is still in mourning. In the meantime, he has been playing around with a local female doctor who is the body found on his land.

Of course, too obvious to be logical, he is immediately suspected of her death as it would appear the death if eerily similar to the plot of his failed book. I suppose it could be arranged to look so obvious that it would be dismissed. Is it this time?

There are courtroom scenes and I’m usually a fan of active courtroom dialogue and descriptively set scenes. There are multiple timelines, switching the reader from present to past, and I still had a problem investing in Elijah and wished there had been more background on Nakita.

I thought the doctor, who was mourning the death of her daughter, felt disingenuous and couldn’t imagine her actions following the death of her child.

A slow burn of a start for me, although it does begin to increase tension with questions of suicide, rather than murder. How in the world could that have been pulled off?

Several holes of credibility here; somewhat disappointed in the characters. Still not sure I can buy the motive, but really, if not Elijah who else could it have been?

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Small Town & Rural Fiction, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN: B0CLHJ3H1D
Listening Length: 9 hrs 36 mins
Narrator: Kaleo Griffith
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Middletide [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Sarah Crouch is known for her accolades in the world of athletics as a professional marathon runner. Middletide is her debut novel, and is set in the Pacific Northwest where she was raised.