The Last Child

I spent all day yesterday reading this book. Not only because the mystery is compelling, but because the book itself is such an effortless pleasure to read. John Hart's prose is beautiful, liquid, and I just drank it down, taking the North Carolina town, its people, and its atmosphere in quick, quenching draughts. The characters are wonderfully real in their complexities and contradictions, nuanced in shades of innocence and evil, selfishness and determination, simplicity and cunning. Within such vivid surrounds, the mystery of the kidnapping becomes only one thread in the warp and weft of other mysteries---what will happen to these people, to their families and their futures, and how will they come together? Or fall apart? The Last Child is a dark story, but it's a moving and uplifting one as well. ( )

I don't even know what to say about John Hart anymore. Guy's just a phenomenal author.

This particular novel is a tough one to review because...well, to be honest, I simply loved everything about it. The story. The characters. The twists. The writing. All of it.

Just....go get yourself one of his books...any one, doesn't matter...and experience John Hart. ( )

boy searches for kidnapped sister, search leads to other pedophiles, sister turns out to have been hit and run covered up

John Hart is a gifted writer. Protagonist Johnny Merrimon's life was wrecked by the disappearance of his twin sister from school, presumably kidnapped by a rapist/killer, the apparent abandonment of his father, and his mother's collapse into drinking/drugs and a tryst with the town's leading developer. After a second girl is abducted, Johnny happens upon a hit and run victim who tells him she is alive and Johnny accelerates his neverending search for his twim. The local cop, who has obsessed over the sister's abduction and mother, believes in Johnny. Reminded me also of Stephen King's The Green Mile. Good taut plot. ( )

It was a very good story line that kept you guessing until the end. I didn't think the main character Johnny, who is 13 years old in the book, is a very realistic character. ( )