I’m finally caught up on my John Hart, having finished his most recent crime novel, The Last Child. I was introduced to his work by a nice editor at St. Martin’s last year and thought it would be a cool learning experience to read his three books in the order they were published, beginning with King of Lies, to see if I could watch him grow as a writer. I thought maybe I could pick up some tricks along the way.

The Last Child, when you really get into it, is not one mystery, but three, which slowly unravel from the core narrative which is the search for Alyssa Merrimon’s killer, a search that is conducted by her twin brother, Johnny, age 13. What Hart does here is counter to what most mystery authors do. Instead of bringing his threads together as the novel progresses, these separate mysteries (who abducted Alyssa? who kidnapped a second girl? what’s up with this black man who speaks to God?) actually pull further and further apart until you realize they have very little to do with each other, in the end. Or, maybe they are all linked in some metaphysical way. The end product is a more mature story than anything Hart has attempted before, and the one that reads most true.

As in real life, there is no tight, happy ending. Not everything is connected. Or has to be. Sometimes we move from one tragedy to another. I think what Hart is going for here is the idea that grace, in the end, will win against the forces of darkness. And I can get behind that.

Like all Hart’s novels, it’s crazy hard to put down. He’s perfected his pacing and structure over the course of three books. Can’t wait to see what’s next.

A memoir about love and murder as told by a chimp? Yes, please, I thought when I first heard about Benjamin Hale’s debut novel, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. What I imaged and hoped for was an adventure story in the vein of Conquest for the Planet of the Apes or something. Some cross-country journey from the point of view of the world’s first speaking chimpanzee. A forbidden unrequited love. What it’s like to be an alien in a world of men.

And, all that’s there, in some form. But, that’s not what this book is about. This book is about language. Language as philosophy. Language as love. Language as evil. Language as grace. It is not about the moment Bruno becomes self-aware (through language) but about the process of becoming self aware (through words, words, words). Learning to think is a process, after all.

The book, itself, treats language as a commodity. It is beautifully written, the words streaming through your head, gently, in time. But, only if you have the lexicon to keep pace. This, of course, will limit the novel’s appeal to a wider audience. But maybe that’s okay. Bruno, himself, would care little about how many readers he reached so long as the ones he did enjoyed the show.

The hardest leap for any reader, though, comes with the story of Bruno’s love for Lydia, the scientist (partly modeled on primatologist Jane Goodall) who rescued him from the Lincoln Park Zoo. For, that love is decidedly not unrequited. And this central narrative owes much, I think, to Nabokov.

Hale, as a writer, delights in allusions to great works of literature and popular culture, throughout. Planet of the Apes is there, of course, but also and mostly, Pinocchio (for who is Leon Smoler, Bruno’s best friend, if not a present-day Stromboli?). If I’m not mistaken, I also caught references to The Twilight Zone and (perhaps) Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

I loved the book but I wanted more whimsy. This is a fun idea. But it is seldom fun. It’s too busy being serious. Will I recommend it? Yes. But not to everyone.

Perversely, I really want to see this adapted for cinema. Spike Jonze would make this sing.

No, this is not Jeremy Renner. He was in The Hurt Locker. His website is here.

I’m a writer. From Ohio. And this is my I.T. guy. We’re ready to get to work.