My brother-in-law has recently become a voracious reader, and when we were visiting last weekend he gave me a couple of books that he’d finished. On of them was John Hart’s “The King of Lies,” which popped up on Publisher Weekly’s Best Books of the Year. They are professionals, so I will spare you my synopsis of the book and give you theirs:

Hart’s stunning debut, an exceptionally deep and complex thriller set in the South, compares favorably to the best of Scott Turow.

Now, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Scott Turow, so I can’t vouch for that comparison. But “The King of Lies” is set in the South, and it is a pretty complex story. I don’t read alot of suspense/thriller stories anymore,* but I there was a time when that was pretty much all I read. Now I mainly read board books about beluga whales, bears and the ABCs. But the allure of the board book isn’t what made me stop reading suspense; it was the similarities between the “thrillers.” They started to seem formulaic, and more often than not the ending didn’t come as a big surprise. “The King of Lies” did surprise me, though. So I liked it. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, except this: There is some gruesomeness. But it’s about a murder, right? So it would have to be a little gruesome. But there’s grossness and violence beyond the murder, too. I could have done without some of it.

*Although I will be if my brother-in-law keeps giving me books because he loves them.