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You're Next

Greg Hurwitz
St Martins Press (2011)
ISBN 9780312534912
Reviewed by Ray Palen for Rebecca's Reads (7/11)

Young Mike Wingate was abandoned by his father, seemingly for no reason, at the early age of four.  Found by authorities, he is sent into a foster home where he is surrounded by similarly unwanted and broken young souls all seeking love and answers.

During his time there, he befriends a fellow foster child by the name of Shep and these two ‘brothers’ form an interesting bond.  "You're Next" then jumps forward to current day where Mike Wingate owns his own construction company and has built a successful life for his family --- wife Annabel and young daughter, Kat.

Suddenly, strange things begin happening to Mike.  He feels like he is being followed and watched all the time.  He also begins receiving strange phone calls and threatening text messages with eerie quotes like ‘you’re next’.  Who is following Mike and what do they want?  It is these questions, and the inevitable sins of the past taking revenge on the present that drives the rest of the story.

Mike hires a private investigator to not only try to uncover who is after him but also to see if this has any connection to his early childhood abandonment.  Above and beyond this, Mike needs to know who his parents were and why they got rid of him.  After having been subjected to such a horrific incident at an early stage in his life why are there still forces out there looking to terrorize Mike Wingate further?

To complicate matters, Mike’s old foster brother Shep suddenly appears.  He is now an ex-con with a questionable track record.  Mike chooses to believe and trust in him and confides to Shep about the strange things happening to him.  Shep and the P.I. (Hank) are the only people willing and able to help Mike Wingate as some seriously dangerous killers after him for unknown reasons.  Even more disheartening is the fact that local law authorities do not take Mike Wingate seriously or seem to want to help him at all.

The premise established by "You're Next" is intriguing, but not a new one.  The rest of the story plods on with barely any suspense and the ultimate payoff is rather a letdown.  This is surprising because Greg Hurwitz has had a pretty nice career writing thrillers and novels as well as for television (he single-handedly almost saved the recent ABC series “V” when he was brought in to write and co-produce it).  "You're Next" is a mediocre suspense thriller at best.  Here’s hoping Greg Hurwitz’s ‘next’ effort is more in line with his potential.

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