Brothers Michael and Julian were rescued from a near-drowning in a cold, Southern creek, only to spend their early years tormented in an orphanage, Iron House. Michael is the stronger of the two brothers, though they both take their share of beatings from the other boys. When Julian kills one of the boys, Michael takes the blame and runs from the orphanage not knowing that Julian is about to be adopted by a very rich woman who would have also taken Michael. Michael grows up on the streets of New York and is taken in by a crime boss who hardens Michael and makes him tougher than he was before. Julian lives in North Carolina, the son of a Senator, but is an unwell teenager and adult, even though he is a successful author. When Michael denounces his crime family to be with Elena, the woman he loves, two of his “brothers” in the family promise vengeance, threatening not only Elena, pregnant with Michael’s child, but Michael’s brother as well. Michael travels to North Carolina to find Julian and stumbles into something bigger than he, something that will tear down everything he ever believed and ever knew.
Hart is a two-time Edgar winning author who creates an almost gothic atmosphere with a tightly woven plot. There are some clichés (the Senator’s affairs, caught on film, of course) and Elena and Julian, the two most important people to Michael, are not as well-developed as some of the others. There is a mental disorder disclosed near the end of the book that doesn’t fit one of the character’s behavior attributed to the disorder. There are also some graphic scenes that readers may find disturbing. That said, Iron House is a fast-paced read with some interesting twists and turns, some expected, some not, with that brooding wonderful Southern atmosphere for which John Hart is known.
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