John Hart is a New York Times bestselling novelist who has written seven top-seller books. Hart worked as a criminal defense attorney, a banker, and a stockbroker in the past. He was born in the city of Durham in the state of North Carolina. After graduating from high school, John Hart enrolled at Davidson College, where he studied French literature, following in his mother’s footsteps. After college, he spent time in Paris and London. He later returned to his hometown in North Carolina, to pursue degrees in accounting and law. His first two novels are set in a fictional version of his hometown, Raven County.
Four of Hart’s works became New York Times bestsellers. Hart’s works have been translated into over 30 languages and sold all over the world, with over 2 million copies in print. With the publishing of his first two works, Hart did not notice any success and started to doubt his talent. After his first child was born, he left his law career. He spent all his time at the Rowan County public library to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. After a year in the country, he achieved success with his first best-selling novel, ‘The King of Lies’, published in 2006.
John Hart is currently residing in Virginia with his wife and two daughters.
John Hart Books in order
Johnny Merrimon
- The Last Child (2009)
- The Hush (2018)
- The King of Lies (2006)
- Down River (2007)
- Iron House (2012)
- Redemption Road (2016)
- The Unwilling (2021)
Similar authors
- Joe Hart’s Liam Dempsey follows former homicide detective Liam Dempsey. He has to investigate the murder of his estranged brother.
- Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End features a police chief. His childhood friend has returned from prison after 30 years.
See also: Stephen Coonts Books in order.
Most recommended books of the series
- The Unwilling (4.17 Goodreads score)
- The Last Child (Johnny Merrimon, #1) (4.13 Goodreads score)
- Redemption Road (4.08 Goodreads score)
- Iron House (4.07 Goodreads score)
- Down River (3.96 Goodreads score)
Awards
He is the only novelist to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel for consecutive books. Other notable awards include the Barry Award, Ian Flemming’s Steel Dagger Award, the North Carolina Literature Award, and the Independent Bookseller’s Fiction Award.
Latest releases in the series
The last John Hart book, the Unwilling, was published in 2021.
Book summaries
The Last Child (2009)
Heralded by the Washington Post as a “a magnificent creation, Huck Finn channeled through Lord of the Flies”, John Hart’s The Last Child is his most significant work to date, an intricate, powerful story of loss, hope, and courage in the face of evil.Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is—confident in a way that he can never fully explain.Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.Then a second child goes missing . . .Undeterred by Hunt’s threats or his mother’s pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit.Traveling the wilderness between innocence and hard wisdom, between hopelessness and faith, The Last Child leaves all categories behind and establishes John Hart as a writer of unique power.
The Hush (2018)
Building on the world first seen in The Last Child (“A magnificent creation” —The Washington Post), John Hart delivers a stunning vision of a secret world, rarely seen.It’s been ten years since the events that changed Johnny Merrimon’s life and rocked his hometown to the core. Since then, Johnny has fought to maintain his privacy, but books have been written of his exploits; the fascination remains. Living alone on six thousand acres of once-sacred land, Johnny’s only connection to normal life is his old friend, Jack. They’re not boys anymore, but the bonds remain. What they shared. What they lost.But Jack sees danger in the wild places Johnny calls home; he senses darkness and hunger, an intractable intent. Johnny will discuss none of it, but there are the things he knows, the things he can do. A lesser friend might accept such abilities as a gift, but Jack has felt what moves in the swamp: the cold of it, the unspeakable fear.
The King of Lies (2006)
John Hart creates a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant, a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer. When Work Pickens finds his father murdered, the investigation pushes a repressed family history to the surface and he sees his own carefully constructed façade begin to crack.Work’s troubled sister, her combative girlfriend, his gold digging socialite wife, and an unrequited lifelong love join a cast of small town characters that create no shortage of drama in this extraordinary, fast-paced suspense novel.
Down River (2007)
Everything that shaped him happened near that river….Now its banks are filled with lies and greed, shame, and murder….Adam hase has a violent streak, and not without reason. As a boy, he saw things that no child should see, suffered wounds that cut to the core and scarred thin. The trauma left him passionate and misunderstood—a fighter. After being narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, Adam is hounded out of the only home he’s ever known, exiled for a sin he did not commit. For five long years he disappears, fades into the faceless gray of New York City. Now he’s back and nobody knows why, not his family or the cops, not the enemies he left behind.But Adam has his reasons.Within hours of his return, he is beaten and accosted, confronted by his family and the women he still holds dear. No one knows what to make of Adam’s return, but when bodies start turning up, the small town rises against him and Adam again finds himself embroiled in the fight of his life, not just to prove his own innocence, but to reclaim the only life he’s ever wanted.
Iron House (2012)
An old man is dying.When the old man is dead they will come for him.And they will come for her, to make him hurt.He would go to hellAt the Iron Mountain Home for Boys, there was nothing but time. Time to burn and time to kill, time for two young orphans to learn that life isn’t won without a fight. Julian survives only because his older brother, Michael, is fearless and fiercely protective. When tensions boil over and a boy is brutally killed, there is only one sacrifice left for Michael to make: He flees the orphanage and takes the blame with him.To keep her safeFor two decades, Michael has been an enforcer in New York’s world of organized crime, a prince of the streets so widely feared he rarely has to kill anymore. But the life he’s fought to build unravels when he meets Elena, a beautiful innocent who teaches him the meaning and power of love. He wants a fresh start with her, the chance to start a family like the one he and Julian never had. But someone else is holding the strings. And escape is not that easy. . . .Go to hell, and come back burningThe mob boss who gave Michael his blessing to begin anew is dying, and his son is intent on making Michael pay for his betrayal. Determined to protect the ones he loves, Michael spirits Elena—who knows nothing of his past crimes, or the peril he’s laid at her door— back to North Carolina, to the place he was born and the brother he lost so long ago. There, he will encounter a whole new level of danger, a thicket of deceit and violence that leads inexorably to the one place he’s been running from his whole life: Iron House.
Redemption Road (2016)
Imagine:A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother.A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting.After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free as deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, a body cools in pale linen…This is a town on the brink.This is Redemption Road.
The Unwilling (2021)
Gibby’s older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison.Jason won’t speak of the war or of his time behind bars, but he wants a relationship with the younger brother he hasn’t known for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whisky and older women.But the day turns ugly when the four encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Beautiful but drunk, one of the women taunts the prisoners, leading to a riot on the bus. The woman finds it funny in the moment, but is savagely murdered soon after.Given his violent history, suspicion turns first to Jason; but when the second woman is kidnapped, the police suspect Gibby, too. Determined to prove Jason innocent, Gibby must avoid the cops and dive deep into his brother’s hidden life, a dark world of heroin, guns and outlaw motorcycle gangs.What he discovers there is a truth more disturbing than he could have imagined: not just the identity of the killer and the reasons for Tyra’s murder, but the forces that shaped his brother in Vietnam, the reason he was framed, and why the most dangerous man alive wants him back in prison.
