Die Next
It seems as if phones are mobile catalogs of our entire lives. They contain our banking information, the names and addresses of our friends and family and pictures of everything from our lovable furry animals to screenshots of that recipe we saw on Pinterest. If given access to yours, what could a stranger learn about you in a matter of minutes?
In Jonathan Stone’s thriller Die Next (Grand Central Publishing), Zack Yellin mistakenly swaps cellphones with assassin Joey Richter during a chance encounter at a coffee shop. Within mere minutes of the switch, Zack knows exactly who Joey is and where he’s headed on his next murderous errand.
Now, Zack must decide if he’ll return a dangerous man’s hit list or try to prevent him from killing again. But who would believe that Zack accidentally swapped phones with a killer? It’s a story that even Zack knows is too far-fetched for anyone but Hollywood to buy.
Without help from the police, Zack decides to take Joey on by himself. If he can learn enough about an assassin from the contents of his phone, he can outsmart him. Right? But Zack’s not the only one with a phone to dig through.
When Joey realizes that Zack isn’t playing by the rules, Zack’s best friend, Steve, and his new girlfriend, Emily, become wrapped up in this unbelievable scheme to catch a killer.
Just when you think that the high stakes plot is coming to a swift conclusion less than 100 pages into the novel, Stone sends his readers six months forward to Joey’s criminal trial. Turns out, Zack and Joey aren’t finished yet. When the defense makes a winning argument, Joey ends up back out on the streets.
Will he seek revenge on the guy with a hero complex who sent him to prison? Or is there an even bigger villain lurking outside the courthouse, waiting to wreak havoc on both Zack and Joey’s lives?
Stone doesn’t let his readers get away with blaming the obvious antagonist. Although Joey is a gun for hire, Zack’s sympathy for him and the other criminals we meet in Die Next encourage the reader to understand the circumstances that lead good people down terrible, life-altering paths.
In the same vein, Stone presents his readers with a main character that’s hard to root for at times. Sure, Zack wants to be the hero, but is his willingness to lie to and hurt the people he cares about justified by some uncertain greater good?
As Zack begins to connect with Joey, his relationship with just about everyone takes a turn, but instead of bending on his pursuit, he doubles down on his decision to fight for the innocent — even if that means teaming up with a hardened criminal.
A story about two men whose fates seem to be linked by identical cellphones, Die Next will keep you on your toes, turning pages and wrestling with that pesky grey area between good and evil.
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