The Survivor: A Novel [Hardcover]

Gregg Hurwitz (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 21, 2012

The #1 international bestselling author of You’re Next, unleashes his most accomplished, compelling thriller yet

 

 

One morning in Los Angeles, Nate Overbay—a divorced former solider suffering from PTSD and slowly dying from ALS — goes to an eleventh-floor bank, climbs out of the bathroom window onto the ledge, and gets ready to end it all. But as he’s steeling himself, a crew of robbers bursts into the bank and begins to viciously shoot employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate confronts the robbers, taking them out one-by-one. The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning.

Nate soon learns what that message meant. He is kidnapped by Pavlo, a savage Russian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist. Unable to break back into the bank to get the critical item inside, Pavlo gives Nate an ultimatum—break in and get what he needs or watch Pavlo slowly kill the one thing Nate loves most—his ex-wife Janie and his teenaged daughter Cielle—both lost when he came back from Iraq broken and confused. Now he’s got one last chance to protect the people he loves, even if it’s the last thing he is able to do.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Hurwitz takes you on a rollercoaster ride from masked gunmen to an escaped killer. Guaranteed to have you so enthralled miss your stop on the bus Rolling Stone A very entertaining thriller writer in the mould of Harlan Coben ... grabs the reader by the throat and does not relinquish its grip. The story hurtles along and the suspense does not let up until the final gunshot Sunday Canberra Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

“One of the best thrillers of the year!”*

“PROPULSIVE…THRILLINGLY CINEMATIC.”—THE WASHINGTON POST
Nate Overbay, a former soldier suffering from PTSD and ALS, goes to an eleventh-floor bank and climbs onto the ledge, ready to end it all. But as he’s steeling himself to jump, a crew of when a gunmen bursts into the bank and begins shooting employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate climbs back inside and, with military precision, Nate begins taking out the robbers, one by one. The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning: He will make you pay in ways you can’t imagine…

“RIVETING…ORIGINAL…DARING…JUST CALL IT TERRIFIC.”
—PROVIDENCE SUNDAY JOURNAL
 

Pavlo is a savage Ukrainian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist. Blocked from entering the bank vault to retrieve a critical item, Pavlo gives Nate a horrifying ultimatum: Either help him break in or watch Pavlo slowly kill his estranged wife and teenaged daughter. Nate lost them once he came back from Iraq, broken and confused. Now the only thing Nate has to lose is—everything. And time is running out...

 

“A VICARIOUS THRILL RIDE WITH AN EMOTIONAL CORE.”—FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

* Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (August 21, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312625510
• ISBN-13: 978-0312625511
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregg Hurwitz is the critically acclaimed, New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twelve novels, most recently Trust No One, They're Watching, You're Next, and The Survivor. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, shortlisted for best novel of the year by International Thriller Writers, nominated for CWA's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, chosen as feature selections for all four major literary book clubs, honored as Book Sense Picks, shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Award, and translated into twenty two languages.
Gregg has written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to Disney, Paramount, Warners, MGM and many of the other major studios, and written, developed, and produced television (including ABC's "V") for various networks. He has also written comics for Marvel and DC, tackling characters ranging from Wolverine to Batman. He has also published numerous academic articles on Shakespeare, taught fiction writing in the USC English Department, and guest lectured for UCLA, and for Harvard in the United States and internationally. In the course of researching his thrillers, he has sneaked onto demolition ranges with Navy SEALs, swum with sharks in the Galápagos, and gone undercover into mind-control cults.
Hurwitz grew up in the Bay Area. While completing a BA from Harvard ('95) and a master's from Trinity College, Oxford in Shakespearean tragedy ('96), he wrote his first novel. He was the undergraduate scholar-athlete of the year at Harvard for his pole-vaulting exploits, and played college soccer in England, where he was a Knox fellow. He now lives in L.A. where he continues to play soccer, frequently injuring himself.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loving Gregg Hurwitz July 15, 2012

By Cheryl Stout TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I have decided I love Gregg Hurwitz. Not in a stalkerish way but with the pure, clean love of a bibliophile for a consistently exciting author. I have read all of his books to date and have loved 100% of them. Very unusual for me. There are very few authors I can say that about. I can count them on both hands - out of the thousands of books I've read.

"The Survivor" doesn't break that record. Twists and turns and wonderful character development define this as in all Hurwitz' books.

Nate Overbay can't catch a break. He's divorced, has PTSD, just found out he has ALS and then, as he's about to jump off a ledge and escape this life, he ends up stopping a bank robbery - with dire consequences.

After you read "The Survivor," rush out and buy Hurwitz' other books. You won't be disappointed.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced and emotionally charged... Hurwitz is addictive July 8, 2012

By Brian Baker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm not going to do a story synopsis, since this is a review and not a Cliff's Notes.

I've read all of Hurwitz's books, and he has yet to write a clunker. He's as dependable as a summer day is long. I always snag them up as soon as they're available, and this book is no exception.

It grabs you right from the first page, wherein our protagonist (Nate Overbay) is on a ledge getting ready to commit suicide because he's been stricken with ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease) and has wrecked his marriage, his relationship with his daughter, and all the rest of his life.

That ledge happens to be right outside the window of a bank that's being held up by ruthless killers, and since he has nothing left to lose he crawls through a window and breaks up the party, killing several of the robbers in the process.

It turns out, though, that this is only the start of his problems, because those robber/killers are part of a Ukrainian mob trying to carry out a more destructive plan than a simple bank robbery. Now, with the lives of his family at risk, he must try to best a psychotic mob chief at his own game before his disease completely incapacitates him.

The pacing is excellent; sustained, fast, and a real roller-coaster. I'd keep wondering how long Hurwitz could successfully maintain it, and he carried it out all the way to the end, I'm happy to report.

The main characters are fully three-dimensional; the good guys are completely sympathetic, and you root for them all the way. The bad guys are truly dastardly, the kind you love to hate... and yet the main Bad Guy is fleshed out so that you also understand him (while still hating him, I'm happy to say)....

When the crux of the plot is revealed, there's still quite a bit of book to go, and I wondered if Hurwitz would be able to carry it out, and what he could possibly find to fill so many yet-unread pages. Well... he did, and I can say no more.

There are a couple of areas where he lost points. As has been pointed out, his knowledge of military matters is pretty bad. Nate's military rank and job in no way at all matched his education and ROTC background. Hurwitz's knowledge of firearms is also pretty... lacking, shall we say? You'd think someone who writes this kind of book would take the time to get things like that right.

Still, this is a pretty darned effective "thriller". I enjoyed it a lot. I hope you will, too. Read more ›

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "I gave you up once already...and have to again sometime soon...The azure sheet of sky dimmed a degree at a time." ibidem July 14, 2012

By Tom McGee TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

If you like to read action packed emotional thrillers, do not miss,"The Survivor" by Gregg Hurwitz. The action grabs you at the onset and grows with anticipation.

Nathan John Overbay has had a tough life that just keeps getting rougher. Every meaningful relationship in his life seems to be followed by tragedy, beginning in the third grade when his mother died of cancer and his father took refuge in "an effluvium of scotch."

Nate finds a way to change his life through college, marriage and fatherhood. His progress to normalcy takes a sudden downward turn as a result of his military service in the Middle East where he witnessed the horrific death of friends. Acts that negatively impacted his mental help and relationships.

Already suffering from depression and PTSD, his diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) was the final straw. He was ready to step off the 11th story ledge of a building when he discovers a bank robbery and murders in action from inside the open window at his back.

With nothing to lose Nate successfully intervenes, unwitting becoming a hero to many, but the target of Ukrainian mobster, Pavlo Maksimovich Shevchenko when he foiled the mobster's personal plans.

Although this was a serious and sometimes frightening storyline the author tickled my funny-bone a few times, as well as other emotions.

A poignant moment, on page 317, pictures Nate and his daughter, Cielle, sitting on a low bridge over a small stream, their toes dangling in the frothy water, contemplating their new relationship and uncertain future while gazing at the slowly darkening clear blue and purple sky, an event that seemed to signal the inevitable....

Hurwitz really knows how to write a vivid, riveting and exciting tale. Captivated, this entertaining 364-page novel kept me reading late into the night, turning off the lights for sleep and then flipping them back on minutes later to read the next chapter.

Besides loss of sleep and the resulting trouble waking up the next morning there was only one slight problem that I had with this book, making it a 4.75 rather than a 5 star experience for me.

The author blundered when he confused the ROTC with the National Guard. Most readers would probably not know, or not let it interfere with this enthralling exciting fictional thriller. The Reserve Officer Training Corps is a college program that results in cadets being commission as military officers with obligated military service. As Officers, It is not plausible for Nate and his friend, Charles to have served as enlisted soldiers in the Middle East.

I was thoroughly entertained by this author's skillfully written tale! I bet most people will be too!

Enjoy! Read more ›

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Truly An Ordeal July 7, 2012

By Timothy J. Mccarthy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Nate, a nearly-divorced dad with PTSD and Lou Gehrig's disease, decides to end his life by diving off the upper floor of his bank into a dumpster which he'd just left open. Whatever else, you have to give him points for thoughtfulness. Just as he's stepping off, gunfire from inside the bank draws him back. Nate, with nothing to lose, manages to kill five of the six robbers, saving several lives, but one gets away and lets Nate know he just made a huge mistake.

This book has an incredible start, and the author draws Nate so artfully that we get to know him as if he's a brother. That's it for the good news. The story is yet another variation on the old, "we're holding your loved one hostage until you successfully commit this crime for us". The cast here is wholly uninspiring. Besides Nate's aforementioned problems, he has a bizarre inner compass that invariably steers him into making the worst possible choices. It becomes painful to watch him jump from one dumb move to the next. Imagine that you are fleeing with your family from a psychotic murderer, and get a text from a sympathetic FBI Agent, asking to meet you at midnight in a remote location. Would you go, or maybe at least call him first? At one point, the Agent even tells him: "I would say, `don't do anything stupid,' but that's all you seem to do." Truer words . . . Nate also has a dead friend who appears in random hallucinations, which serve no purpose but to further annoy the reader. Then we have his daughter who is obnoxious, pouty, and whiny, and who has an obnoxious airhead boyfriend. Nate's wife is fairly normal, but probably wishes she'd been left to drown early in the book. For a while I was cheering for the bad guy, Pavlo, who may have been evil incarnate but at least had his head screwed on straight....

A further annoyance is the author's lack of knowledge about the military. Nate joins ROTC to help pay for college, and on graduating goes straight into the reserves. After 9/11 his ROTC unit is called up and shipped to Iraq, where Nate serves as a junior enlisted man. But ... when you graduate ROTC you're commissioned as an officer, and either go into an active duty unit or a Guard unit. ROTC ends when you graduate, you don't belong to a "ROTC unit". The plot hinges on all this, so you would think the author or editor would have had a military expert clean up the draft.

There are some exciting passages, but overall the book is annoying and filled with cringe-inducing moments that make it downright painful to read. Not recommended. Read more ›