Click here for a photo of John Hart.

Author John Hart Shares His Debut Novel The King of Lies
On UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 14, at 9:30 PM

John Hart's new novel, The King of Lies,is a complex mystery thriller. Hart's protagonist, Jackson Workman Pickens, whom most people call "Work," is a struggling North Carolina criminal defense attorney. Work has wrestled with inner demons for most of his life, especially after the death of his mother and the disappearance of his wealthy father, Ezra Pickens, a highly successful lawyer who took him into his practice. When Work Pickens finds his father murdered, the investigation pushes a repressed family history to the surface and he sees his own carefully constructed facade begin to crack.

On this episode of UNC-TV's local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, airing Friday, July 14, at 9:30 PM, Hart explains to host D.G. Martin how he created a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant-a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer.

"While he was raised wealthy, 'Work' cares more about meaning, while his father cared more about power and the rise to prominence," says Hart. "This is a major source of tension between the two characters as the book unfolds."

Hart, a Durham native, who grew up in Salisbury, shares his mastery of prose and plot that belie his newcomer status. An illuminating anatomy of a murder and the ripple effect it produces within a family and a community, the Salisbury-based book The King of Lies is a stunning debut, and now New York Times Bestseller, revealed to be a bold work with Rowan County roots.

"You take a risk when you set a book in your small hometown. Everybody is going to look through The King of Lies to recognize characters and they're going to wonder if I've worked some of my real-life acquaintances into the story," says Hart. "There's a thin line that weaves through the book, with fiction on one side and fact on the other. And I'll never tell where that line is."

John Hart was born in Durham, NC in 1965. He lived there for seven years before moving to Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1989, John Graduated from Davidson College with a degree in French Literature; he then earned a Masters in Accounting from UNC-Chapel Hill and a law degree from Franklin Pierce Law Center. John is currently hard at work on his second novel.

Don't miss DG Martin's all-new interview with John Hart on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 14, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airingSunday, July 16, at 5 PM,only on UNC-TV!

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Will Blythe (To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever, July 7), Sarah Dessen (Just Listen, July 21), Kristin Henderson (While They're at War, July 28), David Payne (Back to Wando Passo, August 4), John Hope Franklin (Mirror to America, August 11), Leah Stewart (The Myth of You and Me, August 18), Andrew Britton (The American, August 25), Allan Gurganus (New Stories from the South, Sept. 1), Tom Carlson (Hatteras Blues, Sept. 8), Bill Smith (Seasoned in the South, Sept. 15), William Leuchtenburg (The White House Looks South, Sept. 22), Dot Jackson (Refuge, Sept. 29), Art Chansky (Blue Blood, Oct. 6), Mark Ethridge (Grievances, Oct. 13),  Paul Leonard (Music of a Thousand Hammers, Oct. 20), and Angela Davis-Gardner (Plum Wine, October 27).

For more information about additional series guests and airdates, plus, the all-new Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV's other local productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

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