The Last Child

The Last Child is a 2009 mystery/thriller from writer John Hart. The novel is about a young girl who goes missing and her twin brother’s desperate search to find her, even as his world falls apart around him. Hart is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including The King of Lies and Down River. He worked as a banker, a stockbroker, and a criminal defense attorney before turning to writing full-time.

The novel opens with thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon. Once, he seemed to live a charmed life in the suburbs of North Carolina, with everything a pubescent boy could wish for. Until his twin sister Alyssa disappeared walking home one day. Johnny’s best friend Jack says he saw her getting into a strange car. But the police investigation has fizzled, and not a trace of her has been found. It’s been a year, and Johnny’s once-perfect life is in tatters. His mother, Katherine, is not able to cope with the loss and neglects her remaining son. His father, Spencer, has up and left after Katherine blamed him for Alyssa’s disappearance: he was supposed to pick her up from school that day.

Now, the family has lost their house. Katherine buries her feelings with a dependency on drugs and alcohol, and has moved in with her new boyfriend, the wealthy and influential Ken Holloway. Ken is a sinister man who beats both Katherine and Johnny, but she stays because he supplies her with the pills she craves, purposely drugging her to keep her compliant. There is nothing Johnny can do about Holloway’s abuse: the man essentially runs the town.



Johnny is the only one who still seems to believe there’s a chance of finding Alyssa. And he’s determined to figure it out himself. Armed with a map of local pedophiles and a bicycle, he plans to observe local suspects and interview leads, sometimes accompanied by Jack. Jack, the son of a policeman, often feels like a coward compared to the fearless Johnny.

Meanwhile, one cop, Detective Clyde Hunt, continues to try to solve the case. He has become obsessed with Alyssa’s disappearance and with the Merrimon family. He works constantly and nurses a secret attraction to Katherine, who has somehow retained her beauty despite a new dependency on drugs and alcohol. Hunt’s wife leaves him over his pursuit of the case above his home life, and his relationship with his teenage son deteriorates. Hunt knows Johnny is trying to investigate on his own, and tries to offer both Johnny and his mother his card, so they can call him if they need anything. They never do. They feel he has already failed by not finding Alyssa.

Things take a turn one day when Johnny, as per usual, skips school to hang out by the river. He is completely unsupervised, so playing truant is easy for him. There’s a car accident on the bridge above, and a man’s body is tossed over the edge. He lands by Johnny, barely alive, and delivers his last message to the boy: “I found her...the girl that was taken.”



Johnny flees the scene, realizing the man has been killed for what he knows. But then he runs into a forbidding figure: Levi Freemantle, a massive black man who has escaped from jail. Freemantle, however, turns out to be a gentle giant. He scoops Johnny up and stops him from running because he believes the voice of God told him to. He has an unspecified mental disability and hears voices often. Levi and Johnny become unlikely allies. He tells Johnny that “life is a circle.”

Hunt learns that the man flung off the bridge is David Wilson, a college professor. The police investigate his death and last utterance, but find he has no clear ties to Alyssa and had nothing to do with her disappearance. They begin to retrace his last days to find clues as to why he was killed and what his words meant.

Meanwhile, another girl, Tiffany Shore, has also vanished. Hunt and the police hope that in investigating her case, they may also uncover information linking her to Alyssa and solve both cases. Johnny also continues to investigate. But the danger is clear: someone in this town is willing to kill to protect their secrets. And they might kill again.



Eventually, Hart helps uncover the truth: there is a ring of pedophiles operating in the town who abducted Tiffany. One member is a security guard who prowls for suspects using security cameras at the mall. He uncovers his own culpability when he attempts to destroy his home computer, which contains child pornography. When he is brought down, the rest of the ring is brought to light. Tiffany is found, still alive, in a shed.

Yet these pedophiles had nothing to do with Alyssa. It is revealed that she was hit by a car driven by Jack’s older brother. Her death was covered up out of fear that Jack’s brother might lose his athletic scholarships, and Jack, who knew the truth, was threatened into keeping the secret. Johnny feels betrayed when he discovers the truth.

As for Johnny’s father, he didn’t leave out of guilt. He, too, tried to investigate Alyssa’s disappearance, but got too close to the truth about the pedophile ring. He was killed for what he knew and buried in a field along with previous child victims.



Johnny discovers that one of his ancestors once saved the life of Levi’s ancestor Isaac, a freed slave, protecting him from a lynching. This comes full circle when Ken escalates his abuse, threatening to kill both Katherine and Johnny. Suddenly Levi bursts through the door and kills Ken before dying himself.

In an epilogue, Johnny and his mother, now off of drugs, visit Levi’s grave. Then, Johnny writes a letter explaining what has happened over the last few months, addressing the letter to “Jack Cross, my friend.”

The Last Child won an Edgar Award and a Barry Award for Best Novel. It received high praise for the plotting and depiction of a family torn apart by grief. However, some readers were skeptical of Levi’s character, finding him derivative of The Green Mile’s John Coffey and too similar to the “magical negro” stereotype. Hart continued Johnny’s story and friendship with Jack in a sequel, The Hush.