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IRON HOUSE (AUDIO)
by John Hart, read by Scott Sowers
Macmillan Audio, July 2011
Unabridged pages
$39.99
ISBN: 1427212236


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Two brothers lived in the orphanage on Iron Mountain. The older and stronger, Michael, took care of his younger, weaker brother Julian, but the other boys sensed a victim and attacked Julian when Michael was not around. Once Julian turned on his attackers and killed one of them. Michael took the blame and fled the orphanage.

Michael ended up in the city, the enforcer for a criminal boss. Julian was adopted by a powerful and wealthy Senator and his wife. When Michael wants out of the life with his pregnant girlfriend, the criminals threaten to kill his brother. Michael and his girlfriend rush south to protect him. The past and the present commingle to provide a fascinating story of love, revenge and hatred.

This is a very complex book. It twists and turns in time and in story. There are fresh surprises and revelations around every turn. The plot is many-layered yet engrossing and quite easy to follow. Hart leads the reader in many false directions, distracts with red herrings, and tells an absorbing and satisfying story.

The characters are multi-dimensional, believable, and very true-to-life. If I met Michael or Julian or Abigail, (the Senator's wife) on the street I would not be surprised. Michael has made himself into a capable, accomplished young man who wants out of the life of crime. He loved the boss who took him in, but now the boss is dead. He loves Elean and wants the best life possible for her and his baby. He also loves ins brother and, as he did two decades before, wants to protect him from danger. Julian has become a writer and illustrator of children's books, very well known and successful. But he fears the world and retreats into himself rather than deal with it. Abigail loves him fiercely and will do anything to protect him. Her background helps her to coldly act. All the Senator wants is to get re-elected and he will do whatever it takes for that. These are complex, human characters with faults and virtues. Hart reveals their stories as we would peel an onion, layer by layer by layer.

Even the minor characters, the walk-ons, are believable and interesting and Hart gives each of them a back story and a role to play in this book.

The setting is well done also. It is the South, North Carolina, and there is the looming mass of Iron Mountain, where the orphanage sat, always present. Ingrainedly is Southern courtesy, which often it shields a hand of steel. What seems soft is really hard and unyielding. Much of the action takes place on the vast estate belonging to the Senator; much of the rest in small towns where the roads are dirt and the people generally poor. We even go to the back hallows where the poverty is ingrained.

The book was superbly read by Scott Sowers. He made the words come to life. Each character was slightly different. Michael spoke in the crisp tones of the Northerner. Abigail and Julian in the slight drawl of the South. The listener can easily imagine the setting, the characters, and the action.

This was an engrossing book to listen to. It was difficult to stop and intriguing to follow the story. There was many things that were unexpected, yet once they were revealed, perfectly obvious. This is the story of people who are in peril and who discover who they are as a result.

§ Sally Fellows is a retired history teacher with an MA in history and an avid reader of mysteries.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, September 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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