The Devil You Know: A Novel

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 Know combines 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.

WAYNE JOHNSON is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Don't Think Twice and Six Crooked Highways. He was a Teaching-Writing Fellow of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a recipient of the prestigious Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. His short fiction has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and Story, among others, and has been featured in collections including Prize Stories, The O. Henry Awards, and The Norton Anthology of Literature. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.