The Goodbye Man by Jeffery Deaver

Description from Amazon:

In the wilderness of Washington State, expert tracker Colter Shaw has located two young men accused of a terrible hate crime. But when his pursuit takes a shocking and tragic turn, Shaw becomes desperate to discover what went so horribly wrong and if he is to blame.

Shaw’s search for answers leads him to a shadowy organization that bills itself as a grief support group. But is it truly it a community that consoles the bereaved? Or a dangerous cult with a growing body count?

 

Since the last one I’d read in the series was not too bad, I thought I’d try another. Deaver is trying to get Shaw to be the action version of Rhyme and it’s good but not quite there. There are a few too many fortuitous moments, and things that are explained away by him being a survivalist or having amazing instincts or his dad imparting some knowledge to swallow.

The story initially seems farfetched, but since so much is probably not shared in real life by authorities about what goes on in cults like these, I wouldn’t be surprised. Shaw is trying to infiltrate this grief group after one of the people he was trying to find for the reward landed up killing himself. It could have been Shaw’s fault but something doesn’t feel right. So Shaw enters the group and is forced to maintain a façade as he learns about the levels and what they want to accomplish.

The charismatic leader (isn’t there always one?) sees potential in Shaw and elevates him to a position where he sees all the illegal parts happening and figures out the endgoal that the final level requires. But... he could be exposed either through his actions or others who have taken note of him.

Lots of intriguing twists and turns here and I enjoyed the competition between him and a fellow reward seeker who has no problem taking out his competition (permanently by accident).

The facets to the story do keep you guessing, and even though you sometimes have to just accept the story, it’s probably still within the realms of credibility. Even though reading Shaw and reading Rhyme are like reading two different ways of writing, there is still enough Deaver in both to keep the reading comfortable and fast. The novel goes by quickly and leaves enough to want to find out more, even though it’s not my favourite series. If I find others, I’ll keep them for rainy days.