Those Who Wish Me Dead
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4.2 • 17 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This "heart-thumping backwoods adventure" (New York Times Book Review) from bestselling author Michael Koryta will soon be a major motion picture starring Angelina Jolie and Nicholas Hoult.
When fourteen-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he's plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers.
The result is the start of a nightmare. The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him. Now all that remains between them and the boy are Ethan and Allison Serbin, who run the wilderness survival program; Hannah Faber, who occupies a lonely fire lookout tower; and endless miles of desolate Montana mountains. The clock is ticking, the mountains are burning, and those who wish Jace Wilson dead are no longer far behind.
"Outstanding in every way...Don't you dare miss it." --Lee Child
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Hitmaker Michael Koryta comes up with an electrifying premise for a thriller, pitting a teenager against two assassins in a deadly game of cat and mouse in the mountains of Montana. After 14-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a murder, he’s given a new name and sent to a wilderness survival program for delinquent teens. When two cold-blooded contract killers track him down, the whole camp is at risk. Koryta transports us to the treacherous wilderness, giving us an up-close view of the beauty and ferociousness of nature and weaving in fascinating details of real-life survivalist techniques. It’s not just murderers that young Jace has to contend with—raging forest fires and fierce electrical storms amp up the danger even more. Not surprisingly, Those Who Wish Me Dead has been adapted into a star-studded movie. The book will give you new respect for the great, and terrifying, outdoors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A lack of morally complex characters facing tough ethical choices makes this fast-paced thriller a lesser effort for Edgar finalist Koryta (The Prophet). At an abandoned quarry in Indiana, 13-year-old Jace Wilson, who's just jumped into the quarry's pool, sees two men in police uniform cut a man's throat and toss him into the water. The killers chase Jace after finding his clothes, but he manages to escape. Jamie Bennett, a former U.S. Marshal, places Jace in the care of a friend of hers, survival trainer Ethan Serbin, who takes him along on a wilderness training program that he runs for troubled youths in Montana, though Ethan doesn't know which of the seven boys he'll be instructing needs witness protection. Inevitably, the two creepy killers get on Ethan's trail. For someone as smart as Ethan is supposed to be, he fails to anticipate an obvious move on the part of the killers, leading to the first of several developments that many readers will view as contrived.
