Is Justin Hartley’s CBS Series ‘Tracker’ Based on a Book?

With the debut of CBS’ new series Tracker in February, Justin Hartley has moved on from his previous work on the hit TV series This Is Us and has found something akin to his previous work on Smallville. While Hartley isn’t playing a superhero this time around, his latest character, Colter Shaw, acts almost as if he were one. The eponymous Tracker is a reward seeker (though he prefers the term “reward seeker”) with a penchant for finding what people are looking for. The only thing he can’t seem to find is the thing he’s looking for. But while we eagerly await the return of Jensen Ackles as Colter’s brother, there’s one more thing we need to address: Is Tracker based on a book?

CBS’ ‘Tracker’ Is Based on Jeffery Deaver’s Thriller
Almost everything greenlit in Hollywood these days is based on some pre-existing material, and Tracker is no exception. While this CBS drama has the look and feel of a completely new concept, Tracker is actually based on Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw series of novels, although only the first novel in the series, The Never Game, is credited. In fact, when Justin Hartley’s latest TV project was first announced, the original title was The Never Game. But, perhaps after the success of shows with similar one-word titles like Reacher or Walker, CBS decided to rework their series to fit the current trend of “er”-themed action shows. Tracker certainly fits the bill.
The original novel by Jeffery Deaver follows Colter Shaw as he travels to Silicon Valley to find a missing girl named Sophie, who he believes is likely dead. But as he hunts for Sophie, another victim is taken, an LGBT activist named Henry Thompson. It turns out there’s actually a third victim, and with this seemingly never-ending cycle of kidnappings, Colter may be in trouble. We won’t spoil The Never Game’s ending here, especially if it fits into the later Tracker storyline, but let’s just say this action-packed thriller is the perfect entry point for fans of the Colter Shaw character. Justin Hartley, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, was excited to be a part of it. “I’ve never seen a show like this, but I’ve read the book,” he revealed to IGN ahead of the show’s premiere. “[Executive producer] Ken Olin handed me [The Never Game], and we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to do this. We have to figure this out.’” It’s truly an actor’s dream to play such a unique character.” It’s no surprise that he was cast as Colter Shaw, as he easily steals every scene he’s in.

But how closely does Tracker adhere to Jeffery Deaver’s original book series? Well, unlike Reacher, which adapted a Lee Child novel each season, Tracker took a different approach. While the overarching mythology behind the series was taken from Deaver’s original novels (particularly the stories involving the Shaw family and Colter’s upbringing), the overall tone of the series is very much your standard CBS procedural—but that might not be a bad thing. By giving Colter a different mission each week, the series has the opportunity to explore a myriad of environments, groups, and mystery types that will put Tracker on par with all your other favorite case-of-the-week shows.

Of course, just because Tracker isn’t directly adapting The Never Game doesn’t mean the Colter Shaw books won’t influence the plot in the future.

“Character-wise, there’s a lot of similarities,” Hartley notes of Tracker’s commitment to The Never Game and its sequels. “Story-wise, we have our own stories. We have a sort of case of the week, and then interwoven into that is a series of clues about what might have happened to the Colter family. He’s trying to sort through and figure out who might have been involved. Maybe the family was involved. Maybe the dad wasn’t crazy, maybe he figured something out.”

However that ultimately plays out on screen, it will undoubtedly be inspired by Jeffery Deaver’s storyline from the original novel. Speaking of the books, Deaver has published three other novels in addition to The Never Game to date. The Goodbye Man, The Final Twist, and Hunting Time all continue Colter’s literary journey following his 2019 debut, with a number of accompanying short stories set in that same world. It’s unclear whether Hartley, Olin, and series creator Ben H. Winters plan to delve deeper into thosetelevision projects. The most famous of these is probably the Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie film The Bone Collector, which was adapted from Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme novel of the same name. In fact, The Bone Collector was re-adapted in 2020 for the NBC miniseries Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector, starring Russell Hornsby (who previously worked with Denzel Washington on Fences) in the lead role.