What is the author's style in The Last Child by John Hart?

Hart's style is suspenseful and engaging, the structure of the novel is masterful. It generally follows the problem-conflict-resolution-release of tension common to this genre of suspense fiction. But the author paints a broad landscape of characters and possible outcomes once the problem (disappearance of Alyssa Merrimon) is established, which leads the reader seemingly down multiple blind alleys as the police and Alyssa'a brother search for her abductor. The usual suspects turn out to be, in the end, just oddballs and social misfits incapable of multiple murders. The actual perpetrator is a shock because he is the kind of man who seems most unlikely in the role of killer. This is a clear contest between although it is anything but clear who is the actual evil. Having thrown his readers off-center, the author prosecutes his plot with a manic persistence, dropping faint clues here and there but never enough for the reader—or even those in the story—to be certain who the killer is.