Iron Horse, the fourth novel by New York Times best-selling author John Hart, was released last week.
“Given the success of the first three, I always allow myself to feel confident when I might be feeling uncertain,” Hart says. “It’s taught me to push the envelope and given me the confidence to do aggressive story-writing.”
It is this style of writing that sets Hart apart from other authors in his genre.
“I think what I do is blend hard-charging thrillers with meaningful characters,” he says.
The character Michael, who essentially murders people for a living, is one of these characters. Hart says that making people feel for a killer was one of the ideas behind the novel. Michael has killed people, but he is trying to leave that life behind. This lets people still care about what happens to him and his attempt at a new beginning.
How difficult is it for an author to make us care about a character happens to be morally reprehensible? Can you think of any other examples of such characters?
My nominee in this category is John Keller, the contract killer in Lawrence Block’s series:
- Hit Man
- Hit List
- Hit Parade
- Hit and Run
