‘The King of Lies’ Rings True for Readers
June 8, 2009
By Nancy Menefee Jackson
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I like to read first novels.
Some, like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” might be the only one the writer ever gets into print. Others reveal a writer who clearly has promise. But my favorite moment is when I read a first novel that snaps me to attention and makes me realize that I’m going to read every book this author writes. I felt that way when I read Dennis Lehane’s first novel, “A Drink Before the War,” and, sure enough, I’ve read everything he’s written since.
So I don’t quite know how I missed “The King of Lies” by John Hart. It’s a sort of legal-thriller-meets-Southern-gothic novel, and, boy, does it work.
What is it about those Southern families, anyhow? This one has the requisite Southern belle who is beautiful, fragile and perhaps insane; a dysfunctional family; a beloved farm; and a dog named Bone.
The novel is told in first person by Jackson Workman Pickens, known as “Work,” a lawyer who quickly finds himself briefs-deep in all sorts of legal troubles because of the murder of his father. Although Ezra Pickens is dead from the opening pages, he dominates both his son’s thoughts and the novel.
This is a well-written page-turner, and best of all, it’s a first novel — since I was late in getting around to a book published in 2006, Hart has a new novel, “The Last Child,” being released as I write this. I’ll be the staking out the “new fiction” shelves of the library until I have it in hand.
