The Hit

The Hit is the story of the downward spiral of Luke Carr, a Vietnam war veteran, and, at the time of the story’s telling, mental patient at a VA hospital in Mississippi. In a series of notebooks written while holed up in his hospital room, Carr relates the tale of his downfall; a recounting of passion, betrayal, and the perfect crime gone wrong.

Days before leaving to fight in the Vietnam War, Luke Carr lost the only woman he’d ever loved. He returns from the war to a solitary existence—his only company, a bird dog named Adel—keeping below the radar of a world that no longer makes much sense to him. Beneath this cover, Carr plans the perfect crime. He intends to steal the fabled art collection of his ex-lover’s rich husband, a local grandee named Tom Morris. His scheme is fool-proof. Enter Kinnerly Morris, who rekindles an old passion in the dark mind of Luke Carr. An anonymous phone call asking him to carry out a "hit," sets off a series of events that are as unpredictable as they are deadly in this irresistible story about honor, loyalty, betrayal, and revenge.

Jere Hoar’s first novel is a haunting hard-boiler in the tradition of Chandler, Mosley and Cain—a page-turner, literary gem that shows us the darkest depths to which a human soul can fall.