A year after his twin sister’s unsolved disappearance, thirteen year old Johnny Merrimon has never been more alone.  His once picture-perfect family has been torn apart by grief and he’s forced to face the grim realities of impotent cops, social services and peers who think he’s a freak.  Convinced his sister is still alive and that only her rescue will bring his father back home and save his mother from substance abuse and a vicious boyfriend, Johnny embarks on a dangerous quest. He combines ancient magic rituals with a systematic search of sex offenders in the area.

As the protagonist of John Hart’s third novel, The Last Child, Johnny is a wonder.  The book grabbed me from the first several pages where a tough-as-nails Johnny braved predatory bus riders and the elements to obtain an eagle feather for a magic ritual to help bring his sister home.  Though the trauma of his sister’s loss shadows everything he does, he finds strength to fight for his family, and courage that no thirteen year old boy should have to have.

The situation comes to a head when another twelve year old girl in the town disappears and a local professor gives Johnny a clue moments after suffering a fatal motorcycle “accident.”  Through twists and turns and a rising body count, the suspense of what really happened to Johnny’s sister and whether he can climb out of the black hole it has left him in alive builds.

The Last Child is a violent coming of age story about an isolated boy determined to put his broken family back together. Like most good books, I not only didn’t want to put this one down, I was sad when it ended and I had to say goodbye to the characters, especially Johnny.

The Last Child is available from Amazon in hardcover for $16.47 and paperback for $10.19.  Have you read The Last Child?  What did you think of it?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 at 11:04 am and is filed under Read. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.