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Down River
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Product Description
2008 Edgar Winning Novel Down River.
Everything that shaped him happened near that river….
Now its banks are filled with lies and greed, shame, and murder….
John Hart’s debut, The King of Lies, was compelling and lyrical, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times declaring, “There hasn’t been a thriller as showily literate since Scott Turow came along.” Now, in Down River, Hart makes a scorching return to Rowan County, where he drives his characters to the edge, explores the dark side of human nature, and questions the fundamental power of forgiveness.
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.
Bestselling author John Hart holds nothing back as he strips his characters bare. Secrets explode, emotions tear, and more than one person crosses the brink into deadly behavior as he examines the lengths to which people will go for money, family, and revenge.
A powerful, heart-pounding thriller, Down River will haunt your thoughts long after the last page is turned.
Praise for John Hart and The King of Lies
“Treat yourself to something new and truly out of the ordinary.”
---Rocky Mountain News
“A top-notch debut. Hart’s prose is like Raymond Chandler’s, angular and hard.”
--Entertainment Weekly (grade A)
“A gripping performance.”
---People magazine
“A marriage of carefully crafted prose alongside have-to-keep-reading suspense.”
---The Denver Post
“A masterful piece of writing.”
---The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
“A gripping mystery/thriller and a fully fleshed, thoughtful work of literature.”
---Winston-Salem Journal
“The King of Lies moves and reads like a book on fire.”
---Pat Conroy
“John Hart’s debut . . . is that most engrossing of rarities, a well-plotted mystery novel that is written in a beautifully poetic style.”
---Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama
“Grisham-style intrigue and Turow-style brooding.”
---The New York Times
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #14030 in Books
- Published on: 2007-10-02
- Released on: 2007-10-02
- Format: Bargain Price
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Hart surpasses his bestselling debut, The King of Lies (2006), with his richly atmospheric second novel, which offers a tighter plot, more adroit pacing and less angst. Five years earlier, Adam Chase was arrested for murder, largely on the basis of his stepmother's sworn testimony against him. He was acquitted, but nearly everyone, including his father, still thinks he did it, and Adam's deep bitterness has kept him away from home ever since. Now, at the request of a childhood friend, he's back in Salisbury, N.C., where all the old demons still reside and new troubles await. The almost Shakespearean snarl of family ties is complicated by a very modern struggle between economic progress and love for the land, between haves and have-nots. Throughout, Hart expertly weaves his main theme: that by their freedom of choice, humans are capable of betrayal but also of forgiveness and redemption. This book should settle once and for all the question of whether thrillers and mysteries can also be literature. 150,000 first printing; 15-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
John Hart’s 2006 debut, The King of Lies (**** Selection
Customer Reviews
Hart successfully explores the boundaries of the southern gothic
The words "Rowan County, North Carolina," evoke many memories for Danny Chase, the hero of John Hart's second literary thriller, Down River. Many of them are pleasant--for instance, the time he spent with childhood friend Danny Faith. But even the happy memories are colored by the events that drove him from Rowan five years before the events depicted in this novel, when he was almost convicted of a murder he didn't commit. Thus, his reluctance to return to his home town at the urgent behest of his friend Danny is understandable; but, his loyalty to his friend eventually outweighing his misgivings, he decides to honor his pal's request.
His mere appearance in Rowan stirs up old emotions and grudges as he encounters allies and enemies from the past, and things get even more complicated when he discovers that Danny has mysteriously vanished. After a member of his own family is attacked, Danny becomes a person of interest in the investigation. When townspeople start dying all around him, he's forced to unravel an intricate web of secrets to clear his name.
One of those rare writers who actually live up to the expectations created by the hyperbole of his jacket copy and publicity materials, Hart delivers a book that should satisfy thriller fans as well as those who appreciate a well written novel (not that the two are mutually exclusive, mind you). Through his carefully fashioned prose and sheer storytelling ability, Hart successfully updates the southern gothic, artfully trodding some of the same territory as notables such as Grisham, Berendt, and (dare I say?), Wolfe and Faulkner.
Impossible to put down
I thought John Hart had a remarkable beginning with The King of Lies, a book which captured me and kept me glued to the page as it wove together a southern baroque small town family oriented sense of fantasy, reality, and mystery in a way that is totally believable. However, he may have surpassed himself in Down River, a novel which I found impossible to put down and which carried the sins of the past into the crimes of the present and the pain of the future with a human, personal touch that was endlessly gripping. I cannot recommend it too highly if you are interested in the human condition, the complexity of people, or the nature of southern gothic traditions. I believe that John Hart is going to become a writer that many readers look forward to every year for his latest volume. This certainly builds on King of Lies and continues his development as a major fiction writer.
Like a Pebble in a Pool...
...Mistakes usually leave that ripple, sometimes deep, sometime shallow, that flow outward in astonishing ways. If I could give this author 10 stars i would. His book is about a particular family, but I've been a member of a family with members that I saw in the pages of his book. Adam Chase leaves home under a cloud of suspicion, stays away five years and then comes back. People then begin to die, or are discovered to have died, people are hurt, memories that have been hidden rise to the surface and you, as as reader, keep turning the pages, faster and faster. The author writes with depth, with knowledge of how we hurt each other, and shows us tenderness, frustration and dispair. The book blurb says you will remember this story long after you've read the last lline, and that is a true statement. I couldn't recommend a book more. Good job, John Hart.
