Title: You’re Next
Author: Gregg Hurwitz
Publication Date: 2011
Book Description (from Amazon.com): Mike Wingate had a rough childhood — he was abandoned at a playground at four years old and raised in foster care. No one ever came to claim him, and he has only a few, fragmented memories of his parents. Now, as an adult, Mike is finally living the life he had always wanted – he’s happily married to Annabel, the woman of his dreams; they have a precocious eight-year-old daughter, Kat; and his construction company is about to finish a “green” housing development that will secure a solid future for them all. Then the unimaginable happens: Something from Mike’s own past, a past he doesn’t even remember, comes back to visit terror upon him and his family. Menacing characters show up and begin threatening Mike, and when he reports them, the police seem more interested in Mike’s murky past than in investigating or protecting his young family. Now, with Mike, his wife, and their daughter suddenly under attack from all sides, Mike must turn to Shep, a truly dangerous man – and Mike’s only true friend — from their childhood days together in foster care. Together, the two of them will do whatever it takes to protect Mike’s family against the hidden men behind the terrifying warning “You’re Next!”
I spent the weekend with my mom this past weekend. Our weekend started out with some time reading by the pool. I didn’t have anything with me to read, so she loaned me You’re Next by Gregg Hurwitz. She had liked it and since it was 500+ pages I decided to give it a try. A tropical storm started to make its way through our area Sunday afternoon, Sunday and Monday were spent inside – so there was a lot of reading. I started the book Saturday morning and finished it up Monday afternoon.
I really enjoyed the book. The beginning had sections labeled NOW and THEN, which were how he jumped from the past to the present. The author did a great job of catching you up on the main characters past without getting you totally confused about where in time you were. I’ve read some books where they go back and forth every chapter and that just get irritating. Hurwitz does a couple chapters in each time period to help keep you on track. I liked the characters a lot and Hurwitz did a good job of making it easy to get to know them. He also had about 6 main characters, so it was fairly easy to keep track of them.
When you finally find out why these people are out to get the main character it is very much a “HOLY CRAP!” kinda moment. You don’t see it coming at all. Completely out of left field, BUT it makes sense. It isn’t like he just pulled an idea out of a hat without any rhyme or reason. The reasoning explains a lot about the main characters past, to him and the reader. I really liked not having a clue about what the reason for all the craziness was until it was revealed.
I will definitely be checking out his new book (The Survivor) when it comes out in August and going back to check out some of his older stuff. I like suspense books and Hurwitz seems to do a good job with them.
