John Hart Books in Order

John Hart is an American author of crime thrillers set in North Carolina. He is the only writer to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel for consecutive novels, for Down River in 2008 and The Last Child in 2010. The Last Child began the two-book series which introduced thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon, who returns as an adult in The Hush.

Most of Hart’s books are standalone novels, but several of the earlier books are connected by their North Carolina setting. He uses both the real Rowan County, where he grew up, and the fictional Raven County, which is very similar to it. His characters are often deeply connected to the places where they live or return to, and family, land and events from previous years often keep causing trouble in the present.

This page lists all John Hart books in order, including the Johnny Merrimon series and the five standalone novels.

Do John Hart’s Books Need to Be Read in Order?

No, except from the two Johnny Merrimon novels.

The standalone novels The King of Lies, Down River, Iron House, Redemption Road and The Unwilling are separate stories with different characters. They can be read in any order, so you can begin with whichever one interests you most.

The recommended order for the Johnny Merrimon books is The Last Child and then The Hush. The second book returns to Johnny, Jack Cross and Clyde Hunt ten years later. John Hart has said that The Hush can stand on its own, but readers who begin with The Last Child will better understand the characters and the background of what happened to them when they were younger.

The Hush is also a major change from John Hart’s earlier books. It was his first sequel, and the unexplained powers connected to Johnny’s land bring a supernatural element into the story that was not there in the first book. Before, his previous mysteries had always given their crimes and deaths natural explanations.

Johnny Merrimon Series (Books in Order)

The Last Child introduces thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon, a boy from rural North Carolina, one year after his twin sister, Alyssa, disappeared. He refuses to accept his missing sister is dead, and while Detective Clyde Hunt continues the official investigation, Johnny searches for her himself. The Hush returns to Johnny and Raven County ten years later. Johnny lives now alone, as a recluse, on 6,000 acres of swampland called Hush Arbor. When the ownership of the land is challenged, he asks his childhood friend, Jack, now a lawyer, for help.

1. The Last Child, 2009
2. The Hush, 2018

Standalone Novels

• The King of Lies, 2006
• Down River, 2007
• Iron House, 2011
• Redemption Road, 2016
• The Unwilling, 2021

About John Hart

John Hart grew up in Salisbury, North Carolina, where his family had a house in town and almost 500 acres of land beside the river. He has described it as a barefoot, free-ranging childhood and said that every one of his books touches on the love of the land he had from childhood.

Official website: johnhartfiction.com

Born in 1965 in Durham, North Carolina as the son of a surgeon and French teacher, John Hart moved with his family to Rowan County. He studied French literature at Davidson College, graduated in 1988, and lived in London and Paris before returning home. Back in North Carolina, he received graduate degrees in both accounting and law.

After law school, he returned to Salisbury and worked as a criminal defense attorney. He decided to leave his job after he had to defend a child molester who admitted to his crime. John Hart realized he could not bring himself to represent him, and it was time to return to writing. He wrote the opening scene of a new novel in secret and showed it to his wife, who encouraged him to continue.

Hart spent the next eleven and a half months writing The King of Lies in a carrel at the Rowan Public Library. Once the manuscript was finished, he worked as a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch while he searched for an agent and publisher. It took him four years, but St. Martin’s Press eventually offered him an advance of $7,500. The amount was small, but Hart took it as enough reason to leave Merrill Lynch and begin writing Down River. The King of Lies became a New York Times bestseller while he was halfway through the new book.

John Hart used the real Rowan County in The King of Lies and Down River. After local readers began trying to identify the real people they believed were behind his characters, he created the fictional Raven County for The Last Child and Iron House. The name changed, but the family land, rivers and rural communities were still close to the places where he grew up.

Five years passed between Iron House and Redemption Road.. During that time, he moved with his family to a farm outside Charlottesville, Virginia, where he built roads, bridges, barns and a separate writing office. During this time, he also wrote 300 pages of the novel before he decided he had chosen the wrong protagonist, so he started over. The finished novel introduced Elizabeth Black, his first female protagonist, and was published in 2016. The Hush, his first sequel, was published two years later, in 2018, and The Unwilling was published in 2021.

Major Awards and Honors

• Down River – Edgar Award for Best Novel (2008)
• The Last Child – CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger (2009)
• The Last Child – Edgar Award for Best Novel (2010)
• The Last Child – Barry Award for Best Novel (2010)
• Iron House – SIBA Book Award for Fiction (2012)
• North Carolina Award for Literature (2013)

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