Tracker is based on what book? The answer nearly became the show's own title
Tracker — the CBS hit starring Justin Hartley as reward-seeker Colter Shaw — is based on The Never Game, a 2019 crime thriller by Jeffery Deaver.
And if that title sounds unfamiliar, there's a reason: the show was originally called The Never Game before CBS renamed it in March 2023.
The book behind the show
The Never Game is the first in Deaver's Colter Shaw series. Published in May 2019, it follows Shaw — the son of a survivalist family, now making a living tracking down missing people for reward money — as he investigates the disappearance of a young woman in Silicon Valley. The case pulls him into the billion-dollar video gaming industry, and the trail leads to a disturbing connection between a real kidnapping and a popular survival game called The Never Game.
The New York Times Book Review named it a Crime Novel of the Year. Deaver is perhaps best known for The Bone Collector, which was adapted into a 1999 film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.
How many Colter Shaw books are there?
Five so far:
- The Never Game (2019) — the Silicon Valley case that inspired the pilot.
- The Goodbye Man (2020) — Shaw infiltrates a cult.
- The Final Twist (2021) — Shaw returns to the family home to confront his father's secrets.
- Hunting Time (2022) — a woman on the run from a violent ex-husband.
- South of Nowhere (2025 ) — the most recent instalment.
The show uses the first novel as its jumping-off point but has largely gone its own way since the pilot. Individual episodes are original stories rather than direct adaptations.
Why was the name changed?
CBS initially ordered the pilot under the title The Never Game. The rebrand to Tracker came in March 2023 — a move that followed the trend of one-word, "er"-suffix action shows (Reacher on Amazon had just proved the format could print money). Tracker is simpler, more immediately descriptive, and makes the show's procedural identity clear at a glance.
The show premiered on 11 February 2024 as the lead-out following Super Bowl LVIII — the most valuable time slot on American television. It became CBS's biggest new series of the season.
It's since been renewed through a fourth season, with the latest renewal confirmed in January 2026.
For the record: Deaver has said the survivalist family backstory for Colter Shaw was partly inspired by a real family he read about who lived entirely off the grid. The character's name comes from John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition — considered the first American mountain man.