The Brethren

This audio version of Grisham's eleventh legal thriller proves that a solid performance can elevate an otherwise mediocre story. The "brethren," three ex-judges running a scam from prison, snare a presidential candidate recruited to win the election by an aging CIA director. It's a superficial story without heroes, or even a main character. Nonetheless, Muller does his usual clear, dependable job--coaxing every ounce of feeling from his characters. Muller passes easily from Northern to Southern accent in an instant. Still, the listener sometimes wishes for a break in the narrator's continuously raspy voice and tendency to be over-dramatic--both Muller trademarks. Except for Muller's audio performance, this reviewer would have abandoned the book long before the end. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 31, 2000
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.