Great thriller which kept me turning the pages well into the night. Great characters and plot. Highly recommend to others!!

This book is number 2 in the series and I really should have read number 1 first. I found it difficult to connect with the main character. The book started off well but I found it difficult to keep my attention.

3.5★s
The Goodbye Man is the second book in the Colter Shaw series by American author, Jeffery Deaver. In Washington State to track down a pair accused of hate crimes, Colter Shaw easily outsmarts his trigger-happy rival, some similarly-minded law enforcement officers and finds the young men on an isolated road near Snoqualmie Gap. As he disarms and secures them, one escapes and unexpectedly suicides.

He understands they were en route to a retreat, the Osiris Foundation, and what he observes as representatives arrive at the location of the death set his internal alarm bells ringing. Following some research and a bit of inventive online profile creation, Carter Skye pays the fee and registers for a three-week stay in their secluded enclave.

Shaw is alert for any scent of the Foundation being a cult but, despite seeing an undercover reporter assaulted and banished, he’s not entirely convinced the whole deal isn’t fairly benign. But within days, what he witnesses has him concerned for the safety of fellow attendees. And when he fails to prevent an outspoken young man from being murdered, the stakes get higher.

But what can one man, with no phone and no weapons, in an isolated compound with high security, do? Unless, of course, he has been brought up by a paranoid survivalist, that is. Unless he’s Colter Shaw.

While much of the cult-related material is interesting and believable, and quite a few aspects of the cult leader will likely remind readers of a certain recently-deposed president, some suspension of disbelief at Shaw’s abilities and activities will be needed. The story drags on for rather too long, and the unresolved issues from book one (the story behind Ashton Shaw’s death, Margot Keller, Russell Shaw) are only touched upon in the final forty pages. Perhaps they will be addressed in the next book, for those who can be bothered reading on.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia.

The Goodbye Man is the second installment in Jeffrey Deaver Colter Shaw's series. I was given to read and review this book by Netgalley. It is my first Jeffrey Deaver's book. Given Deaver's fame I wanted to read his books for some time now. I am not disappointed.

Writing is superb. Characters are interesting and developed. Story has enough twists and turns to keep reader intrigued, interested and, in places, on the edge.

The Goodbye Man starts off with a hate crime that end in one of the suspects' demise. This incident makes Colter Shaw, professional rewards seeker to dig deeper with very unexpected consequences.

Colter Shaw is interesting and, for me, an unusual hero for thriller and whodunit. Reward seeker by profession, survivalist and rock climber by the choice his father made for him long time agon.

I guess nobody chooses such unorthodox occupations on a whim or at career counsellor's office. Such careers are results of previous life, experiences and choices. Colter Shaw's life is full of such occurrences.

The Goodbye Man took its time with me. But I did enjoy the story, the suspense, the thrills. I found it a bit 'story for big boys' when it came to numerous descriptions of equipment, rockclimbing and details. However, I would love to see Colter Shaw on screen.

I don’t usually like giving a review for books I don’t like as it really is just my own taste/opinion. Having said that I can’t believe this book made it to the printers without the publishers having more input into this cliche riddled plot.
Colter Shaw goes undercover to find out what is going on at a cult called the Osiris Foundation. Their enigmatic leader has promised his followers that all their sins, all their pain, all their anguish will be gone in their second life.
The plot was weak, the writing bad, the twists implausible. It did have a vague Lincoln Rhyme style with the storyline taking twists within twists but on the whole I found this book hugely disappointing.

I’ve read the first in this series, The Never Game, and unfortunately wasn’t a huge fan. However, I had already received this second book from HarperCollins via Netgalley (thanks!), so I decided to give Deaver another go. And… Well…

Deaver’s style of writing is so…stilted and almost…list like, might be the correct description. “Shaw entered the shop. On the shelves there were three different types of chips; salt and vinegar, chicken, and tomato flavoured. He’d need a drink to go with the chips, their sodium levels were high. He walked to the back of the shop where an array of fridges and freezers sat, working overtime due to the heat. Not that the rising mercury worried Shaw. His life off the grid meant no reliance on air conditioning. He was quite comfortable in his dark blue jeans, khaki shirt and hiking boots. He opened the fridge. There were sodas, bottled water, juices. Before he made his choice, the stickers on one of the freezers caught his eye. Red, purple, blue and green. They advertised icecreams he’d never tasted until a few years back. Living in the compound as a child, the occasional treat had come in the form of a piece of fruit. He settled on just the icecream. One with a nut and chocolate coating.”

Okay, that’s not really a quote from the book but it could be and I’ll admit this style just drove me crazy in book one. This time around… I suppose I’ve become a bit more accustomed to it and now I even have a Colter Shaw stilted voice in my head as I read.

I also think I preferred the mystery plot this time around which involves Shaw going undercover to infiltrate a cult. (The cult is so obviously based on Scientology that I wouldn’t be surprised if they took exception.) I remained pretty invested in the cult storyline throughout and my only beef might have been the ease of which Colter managed to get out of some sticky situations.

Colter remains a little bland but he’s not completely unlikeable. Deaver’s supporting characters all tend to be pretty bland too. I much preferred the main supporting female character in this book than Never Game’s though. I did find some of her scenes a little comical, however. As in, she pretty much just ticked the boxes of the ‘supporting female character in an action thriller book’ list Deaver keeps tucked away in his desk drawer.

While Colter investigating the cult is the main plotline, Deaver also included the continuing mystery of Colter’s father’s death. I would like to say he added it seamlessly but I’m afraid he didn’t quite manage this. In fact, the entire last part of the book is an info dump focusing on his father’s storyline and my cynical brain struggled with this ploy to suck the reader into buying book number three. I probably shaved half a star off for this alone.

Oh, and I must also say that some of Shaw’s (or Deaver’s?) inner thoughts about guns really emphasised the US’s mindset about guns in general and on a couple of occasions I shuddered to think that the message regarding gun control is probably going nowhere in that country. (I know, it’s a piece of fiction in the action/thriller genre but a couple of times I found the gun thing really jarring.)

So, in the end, I did like this book to a certain extent but I also feel like there’s so many better written action/thriller books out there that will never sell half as many copies because Jeffrey Deaver is so well known and that’s such a shame.

3 out of 5

A gripping, thriller, The Goodbye Man is the second book in the Colter Shaw series. Twists and turns Shaw is a bounty hunter of sorts who specialises in finding missing persons. This one had me on the edge of my seat unable to put it down until the very end.