The Devil You Know

By Wayne Johnson

Book Overview

When Max Geist plans a rugged canoe trip on the rivers of Northern Minnesota, fifteen-year-old David fears that dealing with his father--an opinionated, stubborn, novice outdoorsman--will be the roughest part of their journey. Little does he know that once he enters the unforgiving wilderness his life, and that of his family, will be irrevocably changed. At the start of their trip, David's father and younger sister, Janie, briefly cross paths with a group of men who, unbeknownst to the Geist family, are on the lam. Fearing the family may have learned too much about them, the outlaws decide to track down the unknown man and his daughter and, if need be, silence them. When they find the family's campsite, David is away; he returns to find his father in a life-or-death struggle with one man and his sister being savagely attacked by another. David, extraordinarily strong for his age, saves Max and Janie's lives and, in the process, kills a man. But the second man escapes, and David knows he has a partner . . . and that it is only a matter of time before they come back to finish the job they started. The outlaws become the only predators to fear in the wild as the Geist family is hunted down like animals--and uninjured David is the family's only hope for survival. As they tread through the snow-covered rocky terrain in search of safety, what began as a family bonding trip becomes a test of David's mental and physical limits, a journey into manhood and the responsibilities that come with it. The Devil You Knowcombines the breathtaking intensity of a first-rate literary thriller with the complexity and poignancy of a classic coming-of-age novel. This is a spellbinding suspense novel with heart and soul, a story that will keep you riveted until the very last page.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609609645
• ISBN13: 9780609609644
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

As much fun for the author as it was for me

This was a very fast read. Thoughtful, well written, paints an ethereal landscape using words the way JMWTurner uses oil. Thoroughly enjoyable. Read it over a weekend. As it read it, it occurred to me the author had fun writing this book-however morose and heartbreaking some of the content.

a true thiller

i read this book at work and had to stop reading it at times because i wasn't paying attention to the phones, or wouldn't see people coming in. once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.

Pretty good

This was a really good book, the plots and ideas really keep you moving along, though near the end you feel like it should be over (still worth it to finish until the end). Only real problem I had with it is that it was a little difficult to read, what I mean is the way it was written was hard to follow along with at times.

Interesting

I normally do not read best-sellers or "page-turners," but when I saw that the author was a teacher at the Iowa Workshop and that it was set in the Boundary Waters wilderness in the seventies (I went on two life changing trips in this area as a teen from Chicago in the seventies) I was excited about reading this book. I enjoyed the book a great deal and stayed up later than normal each night reading it. I thought it was curious that the author is a writing teacher yet a lot of the story telling was, well, less succinct than a writing teacher would let a writing student get away with. Also, the writer, when he really gets in his element, has a peculiar way of using a lot of commas, which for me is distracting and decelerating - but I think this is his personal style and ultimately it works. Whenever I read a book like this my impression is that the writer isn't writing a book but is writing something they hope will be made into a movie. I don't know if this one will be filmed - I hope it will.