Colter Shaw finds people – and despite the pressing need to find the truth about his father’s death, he heads to Washington State in pursuit of two fugitives. Determined to bring them in unharmed, Shaw manages to corner them – but when an unexpected tragedy occurs, Shaw has a new focus – the Osiris Foundation.

Based in a compound deep in the Washington wilderness, the Foundation promises to change your life – but their definition of change hides a dark secret, one that Shaw, once he discovers it, is determined to expose. But going undercover in a secure compound, surrounded by devout followers of the sinister Master Eli, can Shaw possibly find the truth – and if he does, can he convince the faithful of the truth? Or will they all suffer the same terrible fate?

As regular readers know, I am a big fan of Jeffery Deaver, in particular the Lincoln Rhyme series, but it’s taken me a while to get round to the Colter Shaw books. As I said in my review of The Never Game, it took me a few goes to get started, as I had trouble getting a handle on Shaw’s voice. Once you realise that he’s another version of Deaver’s heroes who seem to be capable of second-guessing everything that might happen. But that’s one of the appeals of Deaver’s plotting to me – the old Saturday morning Flash Gordon serial-style chapter endings, cliffhangers everywhere, some of which (almost) seem like reshowing what you say last week only to have it clearly be something different. OK, to be fair, Deaver doesn’t cheat like old Flash did, but over the years, there has been quite a bit of “you see, I knew that he would surprisingly try and shoot my private parts off despite having seemingly trusted him enough to give him a loaded shotgun, but that’s why I’d put on my shotgun-resistant underwear” – that sort of thing. So structurally with regards the plot, these books do share quite a lot with the Lincoln Rhyme books. Which of course, to me, isn’t a bad thing.

All in all, this is pretty good. It takes an interesting turn at the end of part one, and the revelation as to what the cultists are aspiring too is pretty chilling. Once the undercover part starts, Deaver does a pretty good job of keeping up the tension – perhaps given the nature of the cult, there is perhaps one too many people there who have a secret reason for being there, but given that Shaw can only break cover at the end of that bit, it doesn’t feel like dragging.

There are a few points where it looks like things aren’t going anywhere – the final hunt section, the segues between the plot of this story and the series plot – but, without spoiling things, things do tie together while moving things forward.

I’m looking forward to seeing where this is all going – not as much as I’m looking forward to Lincoln Rhyme’s return later this year mind you – but I’m looking forward to where this is all going in The Final Twist.