The Last Child

Fiction

62

2018-06-26 16:29:06

The Last Child is a 2009 mystery/thriller from writer John Hart. The novel is about a young girl who goes missing and her twin brother’s desperate search to find her, even as his world falls apart around him. Hart is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including The King of Lies and Down River. He worked as a banker, a stockbroker, and a criminal defense attorney before turning to writing full-time.

The novel opens with thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon. Once, he seemed to live a charmed life in the suburbs of North Carolina, with everything a pubescent boy could wish for. Until his twin sister Alyssa disappeared walking home one day. Johnny’s best friend Jack says he saw her getting into a strange car. But the police investigation has fizzled, and not a trace of her has been found. It’s been a year, and Johnny’s once-perfect life is in tatters. His mother, Katherine, is not able to cope with the loss and neglects her remaining son. His father, Spencer, has up and left after Katherine blamed him for Alyssa’s disappearance: he was supposed to pick her up from school that day.

Now, the family has lost their house. Katherine buries her feelings with a dependency on drugs and alcohol, and has moved in with her new boyfriend, the wealthy and influential Ken Holloway. Ken is a sinister man who beats both Katherine and Johnny, but she stays because he supplies her with the pills she craves, purposely drugging her to keep her compliant. There is nothing Johnny can do about Holloway’s abuse: the man essentially runs the town.



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~$4.34

2024-08-27

2018-06-26 16:29:06