by John Hart
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Product Description
John Hart creates a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant, a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer. When Work Pickens finds his father murdered, the investigation pushes a repressed family history to the surface and he sees his own carefully constructed façade begin to crack.
Work’s troubled sister, her combative girlfriend, his gold digging socialite wife, and an unrequited lifelong love join a cast of small town characters that create no shortage of drama in this extraordinary, fast-paced suspense novel.
Hart’s mastery of prose and plot belie his newcomer status as he explores the true heart of a man. An illuminating anatomy of a murder and the ripple effect it produces within a family and a community, The King of Lies is a stunning debut.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 loved it, 2008-11-22
I'm writing this to counter some of the negative reviews I've read of this book. I'm not going to summarize the plot, I'll just say that I found the main character very interesting and wanted things to work out well for him in love and life. This was one of the better novels I've read in the last five years out of about thirty or so in this genre.
Didn't like Down River as much.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Engaging story, quirky formatting error for Kindle, 2008-11-08
Pick this title up in paperback...
I enjoyed the story. The characters are fairly well realized, although Mr. Hart seems to imbue his characters with deeply held secrets that they seem to be unusually protective of, especially when it causes them more trouble to keep them than to let them out. The plot was not overly predictable, and overall this was a pleasant read.
The one quibble I have is with the very strange formatting error on the Kindle version. 2 or 3 paragraphs from the beginning of each chapter (but not the FIRST paragraph) were found at the end of the previous chapter, instead of their proper place. So I found myself hitting a discontinuity at the end of the chapter, paging ahead to read the first paragraph, paging back to read the 2 or 3 paragraphs at the end of the last chapter, then paging forward to pick the story back up. For some reason, the paging also seemed unusually slow in this file... much more so than any of the other books I have read in this format. Rather a frustrating experience over all. Fortunately, in the 8 months I have owned my Kindle, this is the first time I have run into this particular problem.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Sizzles, 2008-10-28
Attorney Jackson "Work" Pickens, ten year veteran of the Rowan County, North Carolina bar, is living a lie. Harboring a dark secret that dates from his early teens, he's been manipulated into a career he never wanted, going through the motions, living with a woman he doesn't love, in a house he can't afford, and doing what little he can to live up to the reputation of his famous and wealthy father Ezra - who's been missing for some fifteen months.
Now, Ezra's body has been found, and as the story opens, Work is about to learn he's the best candidate the police have.
In this terse and perfectly rendered opening, the presence of undercurrents, and there will prove to be many lurking just below the surface of this deep, and richly layered novel, make for intriguing reading. Work's sister is another of their father's victims. She's already tried to kill herself twice, and is now living with Alex, an extremely hostile (to Work) lesbian lover. Work knows he didn't kill Ezra and is convinced it had to be his sister. He'll do whatever he can to protect her, up to and including taking the brunt of suspicion.
Author Hart develops his characters slowly and with a sure hand. The backstory begins to appear and it becomes clear; Ezra was a monster who could not permit either of his children to outshine him. Both bear deep psychological scars as a result. Work has a sometimes lover, but his wife wants to reconcile their tottering marriage. Alex believes only she can save Jean.
As the police net tightens around Work, his friends and supporters melt away and the tension mounts in small increments. The author skillfully shifts the finger of guilt (in the reader's mind) from one character to the next, he ups the pressure on Work until The King of Lies sizzles with suspense.
If he hopes to change himself, Work will have to face that one dark place within himself, the thing he's never been able to forgive himself for. They said he was a hero, that he'd rescued the girl from almost certain death in a culvert below the parking lot of the shopping center where his father has now been found dead, but Work knows better.
This novel has all the tightness and tension of the best who-dunnits, as well as superb characterizations and a plot filled with unpredictable twists. I loved it, and I'll soon be reviewing another of Hart's novels. Highly recommended.
Art Tirrell is the author of The Secret Ever Keeps.
"Simply put, the best underwater scenes I've ever read." reviewer Meg W.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Lots of potential but . . ., 2008-10-02
This book looked like it would be another terrific read in a genre that's one of my favorites. But half-way through, I realized that I wasn't enjoying it. Here are some of the reasons this book didn't click for me: (1) cardboard characters (the passive narrator, his shrew social-climbing wife, his emotionally fragile sister, her angry lesbian lover, and a detective with a chip on her shoulder); (2) the overly-dramatic writing style (the self-absorbed narration attributes deep meaning to so many mundane acts and events that after awhile I wanted to scream "Enough!") (3) way too many plot-contrivances (e.g., people walking in on each other just at the right moment to witness something important). It's a pity because the author shows some real promise in certain passages, but the overall effect is too leaden and plodding. I wish him better on his next outing.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Don't waste your time., 2008-09-28
I, like others, was led to reading this book by the reviews on the cover. I will admit it was a page turner. I kept turning the pages hoping to find something good, interesting, or well written. I didn't find any of that. There wasn't one character that I liked, in the least. I was glad to finish it so I could find something good to read.
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