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Title/Author

The Beach House

James Patterson & Peter De Jonge

Average Review Rating Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)
Book Details

Publisher : Headline

Published : 2002

Copyright : SueJack, Inc 2002

ISBN-10 : PB 0-7553-0016-5
ISBN-13 : PB 978-0-7553-0016-7

Publisher's Write-Up

The second that Columbia law student Jack Mullen steps down from the train at East Hampton, he knows that something is very wrong. As he greets his family, his kid brother Peter lies stretched out on a steel gurney, battered, bruised - dead. The police are calling it an accident, saying he drowned in stormy seas, but Jack knows that Pete, a strong swimmer, would never have risked the ocean at night in such conditions. And suicide makes no sense. Someone must have wanted his brother dead.

But the establishment says otherwise. As Jack tries to uncover what really happened on the beach that night, he confronts a wall of silence; a barricade of lawyers, police, and shadowy 'professionals' who protect the privileges of the multi-billionaire summer residents. And when he discovers that his brother had nearly $200,000 in his bank account, he realises Peter wasn't just parking cars to make a living...

The Beach House reveals the secret lives of the rich and powerful in a breathtaking drama of revenge and sexual intrigue - with a plot so absorbing and a finale so shocking it could only have come from the unique mind of James Patterson, writing with his co-author of Miracle on the 17th Green, Peter de Jonge.

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Reader Reviews

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Review by Chrissi (011002) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
I took this to the Launderette the other night and I finished it the next day. I think that I have figured out why James Patterson's stories always fly by, and I think that it is because the chapters are so short and the writing is quite succinct.

The Beach House is a legal thriller about the power that rich people wield over others in their community. It opens with the death of a young man, beaten by hired thugs whilst at a party full of very rich people. His brother is a young law student, working for a prestigious company in New York.

Jack takes the death of his brother very badly, and seeing the body bearing the marks of the beating he knows immediately that his brother did not drown. The problem that he has is that any investigation seems to come up against a wall of silence. The proof that his brother was beaten to death comes from an old friend who is now a pathologist, but come the inquest, she is threatened and lies on the stand.

Jack and his friends continue to try to solve this mystery and embark on a drastic course of action. A year after the death of Peter, they solve the mystery and show the world that power and money are not the infallible shields that they had once believed.

In spite of the brevity of the story, it is really well written, and it is nice that James Patterson is writing with other authors, they retain his style and yet they come out more frequently, I know this because I've got another one sitting on the shelf, where it will not remain for long...
Chrissi (1st October 2002)

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