图书标签: 英文原版 小说 英文小說 Grisham 美国 外国文学 john_grisham 英语
发表于2024-12-23
The Brethren pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载 2024
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Book Description
They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong.
Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich -- very fast.
And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam...while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips -- and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn't be better.
Because they've just found the perfect victim...
Amazon.com
John Grisham's novels have all been so systematically successful that it is easy to forget he is just one man toiling away silently with a pen, experimenting and improving with each book. While not as gifted a prose stylist as Scott Turow, Grisham is among the best plotters in the thriller business, and he infuses his books with a moral valence and creative vision that set them apart from their peers.
The Brethren is in many respects his most daring book yet. The novel grows from two separate subplots. In the first, three imprisoned ex-judges (the "brethren" in the title), frustrated by their loss of power and influence, concoct an elaborate blackmail scheme that preys on wealthy, closeted gay men. The second story traces the rise of presidential candidate Aaron Lake, a puppet essentially created by CIA director Teddy Maynard to fulfill Maynard's plans for restoring the power of his beleaguered agency.
Grisham's tight control of the two meandering threads leaves the reader guessing through most of the opening chapters how and when these two worlds will collide. Also impressive is Grisham's careful portraiture. Justice Hatlee Beech in particular is a fascinating, tragic anti-hero: a millionaire judge with an appointment for life who was rendered divorced, bankrupt, and friendless after his conviction for a drunk-driving homicide.
The book's cynical view of presidential politics and criminal justice casts a somewhat gloomy shadow over the tale. CIA director Teddy Maynard is an all-powerful demon with absolute knowledge and control of the public will and public funds. Even his candidate, Congressman Lake, is a pawn in Maynard's egomaniacal game of ad campaigns, illicit contributions, and international intrigue. In the end, The Brethren marks a transition in Grisham's career toward a more thoughtful narrative style with less interest in the big-payoff blockbuster ending. But that's not to say that the last 50 pages won't keep your reading light turned on late.
--Patrick O'Kel
From Publishers Weekly
Only a few megaselling authors of popular fiction deviate dramatically from formula--most notably Stephen King but recently Grisham, too. He's serializing a literary novel, A Painted House, in the Oxford American; his last thriller (The Testament) emphasized spirituality as intensely as suspense; and his deeply absorbing new novel dispenses with a staple not only of his own work but of most commercial fiction: the hero. The novel does feature three antiheroes of a sort, the brethren of the title, judges serving time in a federal prison in Florida for white-collar offenses. They're a hard bunch to root for, though, as their main activity behind bars is running a blackmail scheme in which they bait, hook and squeeze wealthy, closeted gay men through a magazine ad supposedly placed by "Ricky," a young incarcerated gay looking for companionship. Then there's the two-bit alcoholic attorney who's abetting them by running their mail and depositing their dirty profits in an overseas bank. Scarcely more appealing is the big fish the trio snare, Congressman Anthony Lake, who meanwhile is busy selling his lifelong integrity when the director of the CIA offers to lever him into the White House in exchange for a doubling of federal defense spending upon Lake's inauguration. The expertly orchestrated and very complex plot follows these evildoers through their illicit enterprises, devoting considerable attention to the CIA's staging of Lake's presidential campaign and even more to that agency's potentially lethal pursuit of the brethren once it learns that the three are threatening to out candidate Lake. Every personage in this novel lies, cheats, steals and/or kills, and while Grisham's fans may miss the stalwart lawyer-heroes and David vs. Goliath slant of his earlier work, all will be captivated by this clever thriller that presents as crisp a cast as he's yet devised, and as grippingly sardonic yet bitingly moral a scenario as he's ever imagined. Agent, David Gernert. 2.8 million first printing. (Feb. 1)
From Library Journal
No, they're not monks but three former judges in a minimum security prison who meet in the law library and scheme to make money. But then one of their schemes gets them in trouble with someone on the outside who is very, very powerful.
Book Dimension
length: (cm)17.1 width:(cm)10.6
这本书非常好看,结局让人意想不到,不过看完就一个感觉,简单的事情非要考虑的复杂,所以由此结果也不足为奇啊
评分挺好看的
评分轻松的阅读 看3个前任法官(坐牢ING)如何斗CIA
评分09.8.26.凌晨看完。注:中级难度。
评分Just finished (2nd June, 08)
i started grisham with the firm and has now completed three of his works, firm, pelican brief and just now the brethren. I don't know if it is because i read the firm first or did I read it a long time ago, i find it much more interesting than other the oth...
评分i started grisham with the firm and has now completed three of his works, firm, pelican brief and just now the brethren. I don't know if it is because i read the firm first or did I read it a long time ago, i find it much more interesting than other the oth...
评分i started grisham with the firm and has now completed three of his works, firm, pelican brief and just now the brethren. I don't know if it is because i read the firm first or did I read it a long time ago, i find it much more interesting than other the oth...
评分i started grisham with the firm and has now completed three of his works, firm, pelican brief and just now the brethren. I don't know if it is because i read the firm first or did I read it a long time ago, i find it much more interesting than other the oth...
评分i started grisham with the firm and has now completed three of his works, firm, pelican brief and just now the brethren. I don't know if it is because i read the firm first or did I read it a long time ago, i find it much more interesting than other the oth...
The Brethren pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载 2024