The Survivor Audiobook By Gregg Hurwitz cover art

The Survivor

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Survivor

By: Gregg Hurwitz
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.00

Buy for $25.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Nate Overbay, a former soldier suffering from PTSD and ALS, goes to an 11th-floor bank and climbs out the bathroom window onto the ledge, ready to end it all. But as he’s steeling himself to jump, a crew of gunmen bursts into the bank and begins viciously shooting employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate climbs back inside, confronts the robbers, and with his military training, starts taking them out, one by one. The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning: “He will make you pay in ways you can’t imagine.” Soon enough, Nate learns what this means.

He is kidnapped by Pavlo, a savage Ukrainian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist. Now blocked from getting into the bank vault to retrieve the critical item inside, Pavlo gives Nate a horrifying ultimatum: Either break in and acquire the item or watch Pavlo slowly kill the people Nate loves most - his estranged wife, Janie, and his teenaged daughter, Cielle. Nate lost them both when he came back from Iraq broken and confused. Now he’s got one chance to protect the people he loves, even if it’s the last thing he is able to do.

©2012 Gregg Hurwitz (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Crime Thrillers Suspense Thriller & Suspense Exciting
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup
Gripping Thriller • Emotional Rollercoaster • Excellent Narration • Complex Hero • Vivid Ptsd Depiction
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
Eight hours into The Survivor, I found myself firmly at three and half stars (which is not a ratings option, unfortunately), wondering whether Gregg Hurwitz's action thriller would rise to four or sink to three. I was still open to moving up to four stars despite being disappointed by a number of plot and character points that have clearly been overused over the years:

The hero with PTSD who doubts his courage despite an impressive CV of brave deeds; the ruthless Ukrainian gangsters who let them themselves be talked out of some of their evil intentions by our hero; the dead friend who appears out of survivor guilt (as in Rescue Me); obituaries as metaphor (as in Carl Hiaasen's Basket Case or any of the four recent books titled The Obituary Writer); the daughter's snarky teenage boyfriend who turns out to be a decent guy (as in The Descendants). Oh, I could go on, but I'll stop.

Yet the writing had me hooked despite all that, the plot unfolding in a layered series of twists and reveals that was appealing, and the primary theme of what fathers will do to protect their daughters of great interest to me as a father of two daughters, with that aspect of the story one order of magnitude more complex than some of the other predictable, hackneyed elements.

Unfortunately, the final five hours sent my overall experience down a half-star rather than up. During that overlong period of time, the plot complexities disappear in a wave of action scenes that make this book an obvious choice for Liam Neeson's next movie. Actually, Liam Neeson will probably turn this role down, because he has already played it out several times. The writing and pace of those last five hours are on par with the rest of the book, which is a good thing, but the plotting and characterization all but ceased to move forward.

A disappointment for me, having greatly enjoyed my first Hurwitz title, Tell No Lies, and seeing huge potential in this book's opening hook -- a man about to commit suicide being drawn off the ledge to stop a deadly bank heist. I'm sure I will give Hurwitz another chance because his writing, in this genre, is very good. But as others have said, I would love to take a break from Scott Brick (I'll give him credit for only requiring 1.25x speed this time instead of the usual 1.5x, but his overly dramatic readings are wearing me out).

Paging Liam Neeson!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I have listened to a lot of Gregg Hurwitz's books. I totally adored Crime Writer when I heard it. As the years have passed and Scott Brick has been chosen over and over as narrator, I am getting warn out. The plot is relatively predictable - kind of a Hurwitz formula. The drama.in.every.sentence.....added by Brick. is exhausting to listen to. There is no climax because every third sentence IS a climax.
I had to suspend my disbelief more than I do with other writers such as Connelly, Laura Lippman, Jeffrey Deaver and David Rosenfelt. That got old too. I think I would skip the next Hurwitz book, especially if Brick narrates that one.
This book is not impossible to listen to, just not as good as others or older Hurwitz books.

Too predictable. Suspend your disbelief a LOT!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

So I made it almost 11 hours into this novel and while it's well written and the narration is fine, I just didn't care how it ended, so I'm moving on to another book.

It's a fairly simply story, although there's a lot of running around and it seemed pretty obvious to me how it was going to end. I guess it didn't matter to me enough to hear it out because I kept drifting out of the story and so I finally gave up.

I'm willing to believe it could be more interesting to someone else. Maybe I've simply read too many thrillers and I need a more twists. Running from the bad guy for the entire book is just not enough for me.

Just didn't want to listen anymore...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I couldn't put this book down once I started it. There were a lot of twists and turns that kept you eager to read more - and prevented the book from being predictable!

If you're wondering whether it's worth a credit - It Certainly Is and you won't regret it.

This is one of those books that I'll read again in time.

Awesome Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I have waited several days to write this review. It hasn't gotten any better. The cause of all the mayhem in the story is one spoiled young lady. Just when the story could end, a different teen girl further complicates things.

In the usual Hurwitz style, the book keeps moving. The scene on the ledge outside while a bank robbery is in progress inside, the mystery of why the Ukranians want the contents of a safe deposit box, the struggling hero, and the race to protect two (conflicting) families has twists and many characters.

The hero is believable with his PTSD, broken family, and diagnosis of ALS.
The Ukranians are overdone. It is hard to believe that they only hang out together, are the baddest of the bad, are evil all day long every day, and murder and torture when they don't get their way or for pure enjoyment.

All that being said, it was a decent listen. I did continue to the (predictible) end. I have enjoyed Hurwitz in the past and will give him another listen in the future.

Scott Brick, again, gives a great reading.




2 Bratty Teenage Girls!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Some of the characters were not likeable. The main character Nate has a daughter who is a spoiled brat that is disrespectful to her parents and did some really stupid things. Her idiot boyfriend was annoyng. I could tell they were in the book to do some things that were too stupid for the parents to do, so the author used the kids. The daughter, who claims she is adult and needs to be included in decisions, tells her boyfriend what her dad is involved in, then when the father finally recovers the important document he's set out to find, she opens it and then burns it! Really? And the parents do nothing and aren't mad. She is so cavalier about the situation that when the bad guys break in and go after her, I am hoping they are successful just to teach her a lesson and bring her to reality! Then when they are trying to escape, the boyfriend shows up, and he and the daugher insist he is going with them - and the parents let him in the car!

At one point Nate is with the FBI agent who wants to go pick up the family and take them to safety. Nate shouts that if the FBI do that they will be seen and put a target on his daughters head (there's already one there!), but Nate thinks he can go home, sneak through the back yard, load his family into their own vehicle, and escape? Why can he do that better than the FBI? It was just too annoying and not credible.

Nate works for the police as a death notifier. I don't know if they really have such a position but I doubt that they would give him access to all the investigation information let alone the corpse, autopsy, and evidence. The author had to come up with a way to give Nate this information and chose this mechanism which was just more than I could believe.

The appearances of the dead soldier friend was not effective for me. There are other authors who use this effectively, but here it seemed like a borrowed gimmick.

There was no real explanation of why Nate and his wife split up or why his daughter was so resentful. Nate spent a lot of time thinking about the past in ways that didn't help me understand the present day situation.

The main "bad guy" Pavlov, was a bit extreme and more than obsessed with his daugher. Killing all the witnesses to his daughter's auto accident? Not believable even for a bad guy. Then after she is dead he is in her room cutting up her clothing and underwear. It didn't add to the story.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell, Louise Penny, John Sanford, Jo Nesbo, etc.

Which character – as performed by Scott Brick – was your favorite?

Scott Brick is great all the way around!

Do you think The Survivor needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No way. Besides the main character is dead.

Any additional comments?

I thought I'd like Gregg Hurwitz, but I won't listen to any more of his books. There was too much that didn't make sense (not sensible or believable), and I got tired of all the reminiscing and philosophizing about life. Nate was too sappy about his daughter when she was growing up in light of how unlikeable she was as a teenager.

I fast forwarded through a lot of it, just trying to find out what happened and come to the end.

Where was the editor?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Any additional comments?

Great premise but the eminent death of the main character just hangs over the who story. There is no hope of reprieve. This alone made it difficult to enjoy the book fully. Nice set up and delivery and overall a decent listen. I imagine the author wanted to instill the hopelessness of having Lou Gehrig's disease. A bit of a bummer.

He Didn't - I Did

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I have recently discovered Greg Hurwitz. I’ve been a long time fan of Nelson Demille, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Harlan Coben and others. There’s just something about Hurwitz’ ability to create a scene, and his characters, that surpasses so many others. What sets him apart is his ability to capture emotion and humanity so perfectly. I literally cried in two separate parts of this book, mostly at the scene towards the end that involved Nate leaving for his final mission. The goodbyes to his wife and his dog...man. I was a blubbering mess. Not many action/adventure authors can pull this kind of emotion off. Hats off to Hurwitz, and again to Brick, who I initially found annoying (in previous books) but who I now respect greatly. He WAS Nate Overbay and was undeniably in this character’s head and heart.

More than your average action/adventure novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

first experience with this writer, will definitely read more of his books! many plot twists

first experience with this writer

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Since half of this book is sentimental melodrama (We KNOW you love your wife. We KNOW you love your kid.), it would be improved by cutting 90% of that out, which is an overdone half of the book, and keeping the back-story and crime and Ukrainians. Results being: half the length and but twice as good.

What three words best describe Scott Brick’s performance?

Over-acted melodrama.

Any additional comments?

Never have I met a more obnoxious 15 year old, Cielle. Unkind, unsmart. If she had been 7 or 8, I can sort of see her inability to use her head, but 15?

Melodrama!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews