Redemption Road (Hart)

Redemption Road 
John Hart, 2016
St. Martin's Press
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312380366


Summary
Since his debut bestseller, The King of Lies, reviewers across the country have heaped praise on John Hart, comparing his writing to that of Pat Conroy, Cormac McCarthy and Scott Turow. Each novel has taken Hart higher on the New York Times Bestseller list as his masterful writing and assured evocation of place have won readers around the world and earned history's only consecutive Edgar Awards for Best Novel with Down River and The Last Child. Now, Hart delivers his most powerful story yet.
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.

Brimming with tension, secrets, and betrayal, Redemption Road proves again that John Hart is a master of the literary thriller. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Durham, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., Davidson College; MAcc, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill;
   J.D., University of New Hampshire
• Awards—Edgar Awards (2), Best Novel; Barry Award; Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award
• Currently—lives in Charlottesville, Virginia


John Hart is an American author of five mystery-thriller novels that have achieved both popular and critical acclaim—and that have garnered him several major awards.

Hart was born and raised in North Carolina; his father was a surgeon and his mother a French teacher. Spending a year in France and learning the language, he decided to major in French at Davidson College (north of Charlotte, North Carolina). After college, Hart tried his hand at writing and completed his first novel, though it remains unpublished. He went on to earn his Master's in Accounting at the University of North Carolina, headed to Juneau, Alaska, for a spell with his two sisters, and eventually returned to school for his law degree at the University of New Hampshire. He wrote a second novel while there, but that, too, went unpublished.

Hart returned to Salisbury, North Carolina, where he practiced law for three years—until he was assigned a case involving the defense of a child murderer. Deciding the law wasn't for him, he left the law practice and returned to his first love, writing. He spent just shy of a year buried in the local library writing what would become his first published work, The King of Lies.

Initially rejected by publishers, he and his wife Katie, also a North Carolinian, moved to Greensboro where Hart worked as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. That was when he decided to revisit and revise The King of Lies and send it out again. This time it was scooped up by the second publisher who saw it. It was published by St. Martin's Press in 2006 and became an immediate bestseller.

Four more books followed, most recently the 2016 Redemption Road. His books have accrued awards, including two back-to-back Edgar Allan Poe Awards for Best Novel, in 2008 and 2010—he is the only writer to have done so. (He won for Down River and The Last Child). Over two million of his books are in print.

He and Katie now live with their children in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he writes full time.

Novels
2006 - The King of Lies
2007 - Down River (Edgar Allan Poe Award)
2009 - The Last Child (Edgar Allan Poe Award, Ian Flemming Silver Dagger, Barry Award)
2011 - Iron House
2016 - Redemption Road.

(Visit the author's website.)

Book Reviews
[A]s good as any of [Hart's] previous novels and in some cases even better. His grasp of plot is still phenomenal, his creation of characters is still amazing, and his way with words is still magnificently acute. ... [H]is story rings true. It possesses tremendous depth as it reveals the isolation a wounded heart can feel. It shows understanding in the emotions of rage and revenge. It shows the curative blessings of a redemptive soul. That is a lot to pack into a story but Hart has the heart and stamina to make it all work.
Huffington Post


One of today’s finest thriller writers - certainly in the same league as David Baldacci, John Grisham, Frederick Forsyth and Lee Child. There are moments when Hart’s writing soars off the page with a lyricism that probably only James Lee Burke can match. Unforgettable.
Daily Mail (UK)


John Hart's exquisite writing had me the moment I opened this book.... Hart introduces a full cast of characters and manages to weave them together seamlessly.
New Jersey Star Ledger


Hart ties the two plot threads in a gripping, believable story that doesn't rest until the last sentence.... Redemption Road contains a more ambitious plot than Hart's previous novels, and he weaves this seemingly far-flung story with aplomb.
Associated Press


The pages keep turning—almost involuntarily—until the end. Hart's writing is, at times, pure poetry. Yet at other times, the violence and cruelty he describes are almost too horrible to read. And that's probably the best way to describe this book—a novel that has everything from torture and tortured people to beauty and what is the best in human nature. Hart manages to encompass it all. Beautifully.
Examiner.com


There’s a magic in his work.... Hart creates characters your heart bleeds for...thoroughly worth a slow, attentive read. Hart’s muscular prose is an editor’s dream, written not just in active voice but using verbs you feel in your viscera.
Raleigh News & Observer


Hart once again has proved that he ranks among the best writers anywhere when it comes to literary and psychological thrillers, those novels that combine crime, suspense and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul.
Greensboro News & Record


With prose that runs the gamut between tough and lyrical, a page-turner plot that raises issues both timely and timeless and the talent to delve deeply into the psyches of the injured, Hart...again shines in a novel that examines our ability to rise above the destructive events in our lives―or to surrender to our weaknesses. More than a crime novel, “Redemption Road” offers a volcano of unspeakable cruelty, corruption and sin―but also a testament to saving love, courage and grace.
Richmond Times-Dispatch


Edgar Award winning John Hart cements his status as one of America’s premier novelists, as well as mystery writers, in "Redemption Road," a beautifully rendered, heart wrenching tale that’s the perfect combination of brains and brawn...haunting in its base simplicity and riveting in its emotional angst, this is an extraordinary novel in which the human heart proves the most confounding mystery of all.
Providence Journal


(Starred review.) In this stellar crime thriller, Edgar-winner Hart explores the human capacity for resilience and trust in the face of heartbreaking betrayal.... Though Hart employs plot twists effectively, it’s his powerful, wounded but courageous lead whom readers will remember.
Publishers Weekly


Hart unwinds another complex plot, rich in backstory but driven by a propulsive main narrative.... [H]is grasp of character gives this novel―and all his works―the extra dimension that extends his audience well beyond adrenaline junkies.... Hart hasn’t lost his touch
Booklist


Enough characters, confrontations, secrets, and subplots to fill the stage of an opera house―and leave spectators from the orchestra to the balcony moved and misty-eyed
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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