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| Down River | 
 enlarge | Author: John Hart
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $8.49
You Save: $16.46 (66%)
New (12) Used (10) from $5.36
Avg. Customer Rating:  80 reviews
Sales Rank: 10740
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B001C2HVQ6
Publication Date: October 2, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New....may have a remainder mark. FAST SHIPPING! All addresses welcome..
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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
Book Description
John Hart's debut, King of Lies, was as powerfully captivating as it was lyrical. Janet Maslin in the New York Times said "There hasn't been a thriller as showily literate since Scott Turow came along." On the heels of his astounding success, Hart once agains embarks on an exploration of human nature that proves neither time nor distance is the healer of old wounds. Adam Chase has spent the last five years in New York City futilely trying to erase his worst memories and pound into forgetfulness the scorn and abandonment of his family. Until a phone call from his best friend awakens in him a torrent of emotion and pain.
Having left North Carolina and its red soil for good, he never thought returning to town, certainly not a small Southern one, would be easy—but being remembered as a murderer didn’t help much. Within hours of arriving, Adam is beaten, accosted, harassed, and then confronted by his family, including Grace, a young woman whose abandonment torments him still. Then people start turning up dead. And Adam has a dark streak, a history of violence that predates his acquittal five years earlier. Everyone doubts. No one trusts, and he realizes that nothing has changed in five years. Even his family is closed to him. With each page, emotions are torn ragged—family secrets brought to the surface, scorned lovers return, and townspeople who are engaged in a heated debate over a lucrative land deal are only too easily led across the brink of irrational behavior. Within this roiling small Southern town, John Hart tests the lengths to which people will go for money, family and pure greed—and just whether or not forgiveness is ever attainable.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 75 more reviews...
 Hart successfully explores the boundaries of the southern gothic October 5, 2007
144 out of 151 found this review helpful
When Adam Chase gets a call from childhood friend Danny Faith pleading with him to return to Rowan County, North Carolina, he's understandably reluctant to do so--after all, many of the citizens of Rowan (among them his stepmother) believe him to be a murderer, mistakenly set free some five years prior. But, friendship wins out, and Adam finds himself back home some three weeks later.
Adam's homecoming is extremely painful for him, as it brings him back into contact with those who abandoned him, and those he in turn abandoned. Things are further complicated by Danny Faith's abrupt disappearance, and by a rekindled romance with Robin Alexander, a local law enforcement official. When a family member is assaulted, Adam is suspected of committing the crime. When people start dying around him, Adam finds himself in the eye of an unfortunate storm--the only way out is to unravel a web of secrets so dense it staggers the imagination.
How good is John Hart? Well, Publisher's Weekly commented that Down River "should settle once and for all the question of whether thrillers and mysteries can also be literature." Amen to that. Hart's agile prose leaps off the page and resonates in your consciousness, transporting you inside the mind of Adam Chase and to the environs of Rowan County. Hart deftly explores the boundaries of the southern gothic without lapsing into the grotesque, delivering an engrossing, bittersweet reading experience that expertly evokes the likes of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, John Grisham, and John Berendt while maintaining its own unique perspective and voice.
Impossible to put down October 2, 2007
68 out of 73 found this review helpful
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... October 9, 2007
40 out of 42 found this review helpful
...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.
 Easy, pager-turner... January 6, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
Adam Chase was erroneously arrested for murder five years previously principally due to his stepmother's testimony. He was released due to the jury's inability to find a motive. However, the small town, his Father, step-mother and many others turned on him during the arduous process and still believed that he was the killer. Chase left his family and his lover behind and vanished to NYC. After five years, he returns to his small southern town with a hope of finding his family, forgiveness and his relationship with his girl. Upon his return, he quickly gets entangled in a series of murders and he's again under suspicion.
The murder mystery kept me engaged throughout with many potential suspects and motives. The novel was a compelling and quick read albeit "light and fluffy." I found the plot, while unpredictable, also unbelievable in certain passages which impacted my rating of the novel. This book was an enjoyable page-turning romp.
Good mystery, fast paced, lots of good characters. October 2, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is a "Prodigal Son" book, wherein the oldest son of a wealthy southern family returns home five years after he was accused (but acquitted) of murder. At first, the narrator of this excellent who-dunnit seems incredibly hard headed, self centered, and difficult to like. As the story unfolds, we find out why he is this way, and it lends credibility to his actions later in the book.
Because he's been gone and out of touch for so long, Adam Chase now has to spend time finding out what's been happening with his family, with his ex-girlfriend, and with the small town that was his home. We get to discover these things along with him. When a series of assaults and other crimes happen right after his arrival, Adam becomes the immediate center of attention, and he has to work hard to prove his innocence. All while trying to win back his place in the family and with his old girlfriend.
The plot moves along quickly and has plenty of surprises, but it was the many diverse characters in this novel that really made it entertaining. Plenty of suspects, a dysfunctional family, and the peculiarities of small town southern living make this mystery a good read.
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