• The Brethren

  • By: John Grisham
  • Narrated by: Frank Muller
  • Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,671 ratings)

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The Brethren  By  cover art

The Brethren

By: John Grisham
Narrated by: Frank Muller
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Publisher's summary

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...

Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM, coming soon!

©2000 Belfrey Holdings, Inc. (P)2000 Random House, Inc.

Featured Article: The Essential John Grisham in Audio


John Grisham is best known for his fast-paced legal thrillers and mysteries, many of which have been adapted for television and film. Because he’s so prolific and has been writing for decades, it can be difficult to know where to begin when selecting a title from his impressive back catalog. And Grisham is definitely a jack-of-all-trades: he’s written not only legal thrillers, but nonfiction, a series for kids, some humorous novels, and recently, a new mystery series outside of the legal thriller genre. To help you decide which Grisham gem to download next, we’ve compiled a list of the very best.

What listeners say about The Brethren

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
    48
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Performance
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

My Favorite Grisham to Date

I've read (listened) to most of Grisham's work, and this is my favorite thus far. I really enjoy Grisham's dry sarcasm, and this book is full of it.

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Read

This was my first audible book and I enjoyed it immensely. The narration was wonderful, and the storyline kept me involved from the first page to the last. I almost wanted my hour long commute each way to work to be longer.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

One of his best books

I love the humor that Grisham spews in his novels & this book is overflowing with it. By far this is one of my favorite Grisham's.
Frank Muller has a wonderful reading voice & captures the story fully, it is sad that he is no longer with us.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

This'll work!

Very cool story. Grisham interwove two seemingly disjointed tales into each other gracefully. There wasn't much of a "mystery" involved as the reader can easily guess where the story is going. That fact, however, doesn't take anything away from the sheer brilliance of Grisham's storytelling effort here.

Grisham broke out of the cookie cutter mold with this novel. There is no "good guy". Every character has a different angle and motivation but they're all crooks. It's great fun! The narration is fantastic.

Give it a whirl.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Exciting and humorous with clever twist

I thoroughly enjoyed this book ?another one of Grisham's best. Frank Muller, as usual, is a splendid narrator.

The Brethren is a pungent study of morality with characters drawn from a clear comprehension of human nature. Spicer, Beech and Yarber will no doubt plummet to the same fatal calamity as treacherous Trevor.
It's not good to be too greedy.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Good story, bad reading

Grisham again manages to weave an intricate plot and surprise a reader with unpredictable twists and turns. Unfortunately, Frank Muller's reading was so obnoxious, it was a struggle to finish listening to it. The exaggerated breathiness and painful intonation were irritating and distasteful. I don't know what Muller was paid for this travesty, but it was too much. Needless to say, I won't buy anything more he may have loaned his voice to.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The Brethran

I'll never know if the Brethren is another great book from John Grisham, unless I read it. That's because, try as I would, I could not get past the 1st chapter. The fault was not the story, but the reader Michael Beck. I'll never know if he got any better latter in the story, because I could not get past Beck's sandpaper-grating, reading style. He ended every sentence,no matter its meaning or intensity, in exactly the same way; the dropping off of a well-read sentence, into the dying guttural whisper one would reserve, only for the confidential emphasize that danger was ahead. When I heard my inside self saying "please, not this sentence too" only to hear Beck do it again, I knew it was time to call it quits. For the first time in the 54 years I've been reading, I asked for a refund on a book!

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another winner!

Spent some time over coffee and shared smiles enjoying and listening to this book with my husband! We loved it!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lame Recording

Would you try another book from John Grisham and/or Frank Muller?

I love John Grisham novels

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Brethren?

The story

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Not at all

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointed that the recording is so poor. I've streamed and listened to the story from my local library. There is nothing wrong with that recording. The Audible recording repeated sentences in each chapter and would unexpectedly drop in volume. Frustrating.

Any additional comments?

Is Audible able to offer a better recording?

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Another home run

What can I say?? Just a great story made better by the narrator, Frank Muller. His passing last summer leaves big shoes to fill for future narrators.

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6 people found this helpful