“The Last Child,” by John Hart. St. Martin’s/Minotaur. 2009. 384 pp. $24.95.”They” whoever they are, have been saying John Hart’s third book is his best.
“They” are right. It is one of the most suspenseful, engaging mystery/thrillers I’ve ever read.
“The Last Child” moves faster than Jimmie Johnson on race day, with an unrelenting plot involving a damaged, determined, dangerous 13-year-old, Johnny Merrimon.
While “King of Lies” was a treat for Salisbury readers and “Down River” proved a worthy story of a family struggle, “The Last Child” breaks the speed limit and amps up the power without becoming too melodramatic or unnecessarily violent.
Don’t get me wrong ó it is sometimes violent, frighteningly so, but the violence makes sense in the context. And it has its share of melodrama ó when a parent loses a child, what else can there be?
Johnny is the twin brother of Alyssa, who disappeared from the side of the road. In the year since then, his father has left the family, his mother is addicted to booze and pills, they’ve lost their house and, for Johnny, the fundamentals of childhood.His mom, Katherine, blames her husband for failing to pick Alyssa up at the library that night. Now they live in a rental house owned by the richest, possibly meanest, man in town, who likes to keep Katherine docile and enjoys intimidating Johnny, who fantasizes about revenge.
They’ve gone about as low as they can.
Johnny, though, won’t give up. He refuses to believe his sister is dead, although the trail has gone cold, and he takes incredible risks to methodically check out every sexual predator in the county.
He goes from house to creepy house, spying on the inhabitants, keeping notes and a map, searching for clues. Sometimes he rides his bike and his friend, Jack, another lost child, goes with him. Sometimes he steals his mother’s car to cover distances.
He’s developed a fascination for Indian lore and ancient superstitions. He’ll use any and all help he can get to find Alyssa. Everyone he’s trusted has failed him.
Nothing makes him angrier than people who have lost faith in the cause. His own faith has evaporated. He prayed, but nothing he asked for ever came true. As far as he’s concerned, there is no God. Not one that hears prayers, anyway.
Det. Clyde Hunt is equally obsessed with Alyssa’s case, so much so his wife has left him and there are rumors in the police department that he has a thing for Katherine Merrimon.
The file stays on his desk, goes home with him nightly, consumes his thoughts. He tries to keep an eye on Johnny, repeatedly warning him to stop the spying, repeatedly giving him his card and telling him to call.
But Johnny has learned ó trust no one. Not under any circumstance. He can’t trust his mother, now a virtual slave to Ken Holloway. He sure can’t trust the cops, or the teachers, or anyone ó but maybe Jack.
Jack’s damaged in a different way ó with one withered arm and a baseball-star brother. He is tormented endlessly, frequently hurt and emotionally messed up. His father is a cop, his mother a religious zealot. Jack has no one to trust, either.
They witness a horrible death one day at the river while ditching school. Before the man dies, he whispers, “I know where she is.”
Another young girl, Tiffany Shore, is missing, but Johnny knows the dying man means Alyssa, even if the cops and his own mother don’t believe him.
This discovery starts a cascading torrent of events that presses on and on and on without any respite.
Johnny next encounters escaped convict Levi Freemantle; the police later link Freemantle to the death at the river. Johnny takes his search to new extremes, watching ever more dangerous predators.
Hunt stays on the hunt, despite constant threats from his chief and further estrangement from his own teen-age son.
As the sky grows dark, so do intentions, actions, consequences.
Yet another horrific event befalls Johnny, this time captured in newspaper photographs and on TV.
His mother starts to climb from her drug-induced oblivion, but is it too late?
Will Hunt’s intuition and power of deduction lead him to the right place at the right time?
Who will survive?
The book is punctuated by death ó deaths. Those deaths hamper the investigation ó the dead can’t talk. At least one death comes with a sense of relief, another with peace, despite the circumstances.
Hart’s writing just gets better. This book is tighter, more intense, more intricately plotted.
The clues Hart throws out will jerk the reader first in one direction, then another. The surprises are worthy of a loud gasp.
Readers will feel as if they’ve been running through the woods, in the middle of a storm, for a long time, but what a trip.
“The Last Child” should have a wide appeal and earn plenty of accolades. Hart is honing his gift, paring down to the most essential parts, but still painting rich, realistic backgrounds. His characters have clarity and quirks aplenty.
Sure, the good guys are good, if conflicted, and the bad guys are pretty lousy, but the story transcends any trademarks of the genre.
If “The Last Child” is this good, I can hardly wait for book four.