In his Edgar Award-winning novel Down River, John Hart has created a novel about family relationships as well as a thriller complete with murder, vengeance, suspense and revenge. Adam Chase reluctantly returns home after years away. Although acquitted of murder several years before, he is still viewed with suspicion and fear by both many local people as well as some members of his own family. He returns home at the request of a childhood friend whom he discovers is missing and becomes embroiled in another murder, a struggle between economic progress and those wanting to preserve the land and the past problems and secrets that have divided his family. Hart is an exceptional writer and has created characters that are vivid and realistic with faults, virtues and divided loyalties. The story is engrossing, exciting and well-deserving of the awards won by the author.