Hunting Time by Jeffery Deaver

Description from Amazon:

THERE ARE TWO FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF SURVIVAL.
#1: NEVER BE WITHOUT A MEANS OF ESCAPE.
Allison Parker is on the run with her teenage daughter, Hannah, and Colter Shaw has been hired by her eccentric boss, entrepreneur Marty Harmon, to find and protect her. Though he’s an expert at tracking missing persons—even those who don’t wish to be found—Shaw has met his match in Allison, who brings all her skills as a brilliant engineer designing revolutionary technology to the game of evading detection.
#2: NEVER BE WITHOUT ACCESS TO A WEAPON.
The reason for Allison’s panicked flight is soon apparent. She’s being stalked by her ex-husband, Jon Merritt. Newly released from prison and fueled by blinding rage, Jon is a man whose former profession as a police detective makes him uniquely suited for the hunt. And he’s not alone. Two hitmen are also hot on her heels—an eerie pair of thugs who take delight not only in murder but in the sport of devising clever ways to make bodies disappear forever. Even if Shaw manages to catch up with Allison and her daughter, his troubles will just be beginning.
SHAW IS ABOUT TO DISCOVER RULE #3:
NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING.
As Shaw ventures further into the wilderness, the truth becomes as hard to decipher as the forest’s unmarked trails…and peril awaits at every turn.

So, honestly, with the blurb giving us excitement about Allison on the run and Colter tracking her, it sounded like a good setup. I’d read one or two of the Colter Shaw books before, and they weren’t too bad. I figured since this was Deaver it’d be good too.

But I really don’t feel the same about Shaw as I do about Rhyme! There is something about Lincoln’s character that is a lot deeper and Shaw feels underdeveloped to me. I appreciated his survivalist backstory and how he integrates it and the fact that he works for “rewards” now but he doesn’t feel like he has enough substance. I think maybe Lincoln’s methodology and each piece of evidence makes it feel as though the cases are really solved through clues, while with Shaw’s case it wasn’t what he was looking for but more of what he was bringing to the party.

Okay, so the story has Allison and Hannah on the run from Jon after his prison release and him threatening to kill Allison. We know Allison has some secret about Jon and is some engineering tech genius, but her using these skills to evade a tracker? I think her skills were highly overrated and more often than not, she just used instinct and good sense. Hannah’s petulance and reliance on the internet was to be expected, and then her about-turn when she was learning all these new skills from Shaw and becoming one with them? Maybe. Just felt forced to me. The thugs following them must have been the dumbest hitmen out. Yes they could kill people but their conversations and actions (and the whole itchy skin thing!) were silly.

Deaver makes plot twists a thing. Then he started creating twists on twists and now he has so many twists in his books that from the beginning you suspect everyone and thus cannot get close to characters or invested in the books. It takes the fun out of loving or hating a character and at the end going “Oh no!” And this twist? Very flat I’m afraid.

When I closed the book, I battled to remember what the beginning was about, and two days later I actually had to read a few reviews to remind myself of parts of the book. That’s never a good sign. I want a book that blows me away to the point where days later I’m still asking why I didn’t see it coming. Oh well… I guess I’ll keep reading his books, hoping for a new one that is amazing. Not even Justin Hartley will save this one.