You can always depend on John Hart to write an outstanding literary thriller. And he's done it again with REDEMPTION ROAD.

Various mysteries are going on here. Mainly, though, we're given the character Elizabeth. She's been a member of the police force for 13 years, and she's the daughter of a preacher who she hates. Why does she hate him? A former member of the police force, Adrian, is getting out of jail after 13 years. Was he guilty of the crime he was convicted of? Elizabeth didn't think so 13 years ago and did her best then to find proof of his innocence. Now the identical crime is happening again. Is Adrian guilty, or is he being set up? Those are only some of the mysteries in REDEMPTION ROAD.

The story is both character driven and plot driven. That's the best kind of thriller, and that's why you want to read this. But it isn't flawless.

REDEMPTION ROAD doesn't get my highest rating because of one character, Gideon. He is a 14-year-old boy. Hart speaks of him and has him act like he is 8. Hart even mentions Gideon's toys near the end of the book, when he could be 15. That irritated me.

But that's me. It may not bug other readers. I sure would feel better, though, if Hart would at least delete that reference to toys and if the person in charge of punctuation would delete all the commas after "but." (As a technical editor, "but," makes me cringe.)

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't realize that this man had won the Edgar Award twice. The only author to ever do so. I had never read anything by this author before and I truly enjoyed this novel. He has published 5 novels and I intend to read all five. Three down and two to go. Love this man's stories.

Our book club has read some of John Hart's books in the past so this was an easy choice. Most of us liked the book, but we had a few members that really couldn't get past the scene(s) in the church. I won't say any more so as not to give any of the book away. The reason for my rating is that it was not my favorite by this author.

It was a page turner with a few flaws, exciting enough with lots of plot twists. There were too many subplots which distracted from the main story. I had the killer figured out early in the book even though the author tried to make about five different characters out to be the killer. When the killer turned out to be who I thought it was, I was disappointed because he made such a lousy serial killer!