Iron house

 by John Hart. *Starred Review* It isn't as if Hart's career needed jump-starting. His first three stand-alone thrillers have been greeted by an ever-growing crescendo of praise, including two Edgar Awards. Definitely not the kind of writer who needs a breakthrough book. And, yet, Iron House lifts Hart to an altogether new level of excellence. Its premise is reminiscent of the author's second book, Down River (2007) North Carolina man returns home after years in New York to settle scores but here the stakes are so much higher. Brothers Michael and Julian spent the formative years of their childhood in a Dickensian orphanage in North Carolina called Iron House; the experience made Michael strong and Julian weak, utterly dependent on his brother, but that all changes in a moment: suddenly Michael is on the run, and Julian is adopted by a wealthy woman. In New York, Michael becomes a stone-cold Mob hit man; Julian, on the other hand, turns his nightmares into best-selling children's books but remains haunted by demons. The brothers' lives come together when Mob rivals threaten to use Julian to get to Michael. The present-time plot disaffected Mob hit man on the run, trying to carve a new life without endangering those he loves makes a superb thriller on its own (steadily building tension, magnificently choreographed fight scenes, including a High Noon-like finale), but it's what Hart does with the backstory that gives the novel its beyond-genre depth. Like the great Peter Høeg in Borderliners (1994), Hart uses the familiar story of mistreatment in an orphanage as a way into the inner lives of his characters, and the blind fear, abject confusion, and yearning for love he finds there are both heartbreaking and curiously hopeful, in an almost postapocalyptic way. An unforgettable novel from a master of popular fiction. --Booklist (Check Catalog)