Like Hart's 2007 novel Down River, a big Richard & Judy bookclub hit, The Last Child combines traditional mystery elements with a more literary focus on landscape and psychological processes. Its hollow core is 12-year-old Alyssa Merrimon, who was abducted on her way home from the library. One year on, her twin brother is scouring North Carolina for her on his bashed-up bike, while their mother has become dependent on drugs and the abusive boyfriend she hooked up with after her husband moved out, racked with guilt for forgetting to pick Alyssa up on the night she disappeared. Into all this wanders Clyde Hunt, the detective originally assigned the case and obsessed with his inability to solve it. Although Hart has a weakness for melodramatic dialogue ("Maybe darkness is a cancer of the human heart ..."), The Last Child is as satisfying as his previous books.