Immediately engrossing, heart-breaking at times, very fast-paced story of young boy determined to find his missing sister. Deserted by his father, neglected by his mother who is dealing with her grief and guilt by abusing drugs, Johnny is alone in his search. There are enough plot twists and sympathetic characters to keep things moving and interesting.

The author did an excellent job of weaving a page-turning story with a very surprising ending!

So many times we just do not understand how deep young children feeling can go. This little boy loves his sister and no one will stop him in his search for her to the point it takes over his life til he does find her. A wonderful story that will make you cry, but warm your heart in the end.

This just isn't the book for a discussion. While we all enjoyed the book, we didn't have much to discuss. There also was a delay between when we all read the book and our meeting so we had forgotten details.

Our club usually picks fiction. This suspense novel was a little out of our comfort zone. We ALL loved it and were sad to see it end.

A good story based on one child's perserverance. The story showed the repercussions of an event, and the people that should have been strong fell apart and the one who should have been protected had to be strong. Lots of twists and a surprise ending.

Everybody in the group loved it. We loved all of the twist and turns the author wrote about. Recommend this book. It was a page turner

An easy read with many twists and turns. A mysterious adventure with a little detective work on the side.

I read this book in a weekend and enjoyed it! I never had a clue what the end would be until I got there! Really enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading other work by this author!

A 13-year-old boy, Johnny, and his friend, Jack, search for Johnny's twin sister, Alyssa, a year after she has gone missing, after everyone else, it seems, has given up. "It seems" because the case still haunts police Detective Hunt as well.

Jack has described his last sighting of Alyssa: because her father forgot to pick her up, Alyssa was walking home at dusk when a car stopped and she walked up to the open car window, smiling. That's when she was grabbed and pulled into the car, and the car drove away.

Johnny's mother blamed his father for Alyssa's abduction, and he has subsequently walked out on Johnny and his mother. So Johnny is now trying to put his family back together by finding known pedophiles in his county and spying on them, determined to find Alyssa alive. In the process, he uncovers another crime.

John Hart is a great author. THE LAST CHILD, his latest, is a page turner. But I can't praise it as I did DOWN RIVER, Hart's 2006 book, because THE LAST CHILD has a flaw that comes up again and again throughout the book. That is, Johnny's mother, Katheryn, and Detective Hunt's infatuation with her.

Katheryn is described as beautiful. Yet she is also described as addicted to all sorts of drugs, rarely combing or washing her hair, and always unaware of her dirty home and of Johnny's absence. That doesn't sound beautiful to me.

But Detective Hunt is drawn to her even as she disgusts the reader. And at the same time, he is described as smart and capable, seemingly the best detective in his police force. The two descriptions, Hunt's infatuation with a disgusting woman and his high intelligence, just don't jive for me.

Something else that irritated me but probably won't bother most other people: Hart's use of the word "that" when he should use "who." This, too, occurs throughout the book and I would think should have been caught by an editor.

But don't skip this book because of that one flaw or because of what I see as an editorial error. I bought it at Borders and don't feel cheated, that coming from a person who feels cheated when she pays $2 for a bad book. I'm still anxious to read Hart's KING OF LIES, his first book.

Everyone enjoyed the book, and thought the writing was good. Living in NC and the setting of the book being in NC made it fun to read. Ending was somewhat disappointing.

This mystery had many twists and kept you guessing (especially the ending.) Our club enjoyed this book.