The Brethren | A Legal Thriller Novel By John Grisham | Views And Reviews

John Grisham – a lawyer by profession is a writer by passion. He is known for his legal thrillers. Some of his works are made into movies as well. He was also invited as a commencement speaker at the North Carolina University.

The Brethren – is a legal thriller written by him which was initially published in year 2000.

The book very closely and authentically shows the entire process of presidential election in USA. Each of the detail is well thought and written very carefully, the dialogs, the hype, the environment, every element is so perfect that it gives pretty – real – experience. There is a thrilling plot weaved along with and progress along with the election process. The end of the novel may disappoint you but it keeps the hope of the sequel for the book alive.

The book starts with the introduction of a person named Aaron Lake. He is not a celebrity in any way, nor he was widely known. He was a comparatively known person in the city he lives in and was a genuine and no-nonsense person. There is a soon to be retire CIA head who see the nuclear developments in other countries as a threat and is willing to beef up the spending for the national security. Probably his sole aim is to see the country in safer conditions before he leave the post. In addition, There are three federal judges who were in the imprisonment at Trumble.

Trumble is considered as a ‘camp’ for the prisoners as it is one of the minimum security prison. The priosners there were considered less harmless! Most of them are drug-dealers, tax evaders, bank robbers. There were a few lawyers, a doctor and a couple of wallstreet crook too. There were even innocent prisoners, who got there due to some wrong reasons. And yes the three judges mentioned earlier were also there, who call themselves – the Brethren. They run their own court inside the prison to resolve some internal disputes. They regularly meet at a law library for the same purpose.

They do one more thing, they spent time writing letters! Pretty harmless activity right? No, they run a mail scam. They advertise in a gay magazine with different names and pretend to be a young and charming teenager. They then choose victims from the response of that ADs. Once they got trust of the victim they start demanding some money from him by posting some sympathetic tales about the boy, they pretend to be. After a certain limit they play their master stroke. They, during the process finds the real identity of the mail-friend. They choose prestigious and wealthy responder, who don’t want to be exposed as a gay and they tried collecting maximum money from the victim they can.

Their contact to the world, especially for the mailing purpose, is their lawyer. Their scam was running successfully and they earned remarkably good amount of money via it.

But, somehow, Aaron Lake, the chosen candidate for the President election, backed by the CIA chief (in the background of course), fall in the trap!!!

Aaron is getting more and more popular in public during his election campaign, getting victories on the proceeding steps, and considered almost final as the next president. One of the biggest positive point of him is, his clean image. There are no skeletons in his past. And if the fact is exposed that he is a gay and involved in a scandal like this, the media definitely expose it. And the opponents want to use the opportunity to its best.

The CIA chief got to know about the same (without the knowledge of Aaron), and decided to do his best to save his candidate (well, we can say that, as Aaron is there in the election due to the CIA chief, and every aspect of his election campaign is planned by him).

So now there is the chase between one of the best intelligence system of the world, powerful operatives, intelligent thinkers – and the brethren!

It is a witty thriller which will interest the thriller lovers. Though we feel that the end could have been better. The brethren should not be in position to negotiate with CIA chief, or get what they’ve got at the end (Well, we don’t want to reveal the end, for reader’s interest). But it somehow keeps the plot set in the way that, you can expect the sequel of the novel!

We would love to see the book as a Hollywood movie, probably starring Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Hanks as Aaron Lake. What is your dream cast for the movie?