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A Novel
2018 Penguin Random House; Anchor
368 Seiten
173 mm x 108 mm
Sprache: English
978-0-525-48617-6

Besprechung

A delightfully lighthearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A happy lark [that] provides the pleasure of a leisurely jaunt periodically jolted into high gear, just for the fun and speed of it. The New York Times Book Review

Sheer catnip . . . [Grisham] reveals an amiable, sardonic edge here that makes Camino Island a most agreeable summer destination. USA Today

Fans will thrill with the classic chase and satisfying ending; and book lovers will wallow in ecstasy. The Florida Times-Union

Langtext

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A delightfully lighthearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a vault deep below Princeton University s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, impossible to resist.

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in unsavory ventures.

Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous monetary offer convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Cable s circle of literary friends, to get close to the ringleader, to discover his secrets.

Don t miss John Grisham s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

Textauszug

CHAPTER ONE

The Heist

1.
The imposter borrowed the name of Neville Manchin, an actual professor of American literature at Portland State and soon-to-be doctoral student at Stanford. In his letter, on perfectly forged college stationery, Professor Manchin claimed to be a budding scholar of F. Scott Fitzgerald and was keen to see the great writer s manuscripts and papers during a forthcoming trip to the East Coast. The letter was addressed to Dr. Jeffrey Brown, Director of Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University. It arrived with a few others, was duly sorted and passed along, and eventually landed on the desk of Ed Folk, a career junior librarian whose task, among several other monotonous ones, was to verify the credentials of the person who wrote the letter.
Ed received several of these letters each week, all in many ways the same, all from self-proclaimed Fitzgerald buffs and experts, and even from the occasional true scholar. In the previous calendar year, Ed had cleared and logged in 190 of these people through the library. They came from all over the world and arrived wide-eyed and humbled, like pilgrims before a shrine. In his thirty-four years at the same desk, Ed had processed all of them. And, they were not going away. F. Scott Fitzgerald continued to fascinate. The traffic was as heavy now as it had been three decades earlier. These days, though, Ed was wondering what could possibly be left of the great writer s life that had not been pored over, studied at great length, and written about. Not long ago, a true scholar told Ed that there were now at least a hundred books and over ten thousand published academic articles on Fitzgerald the man, the writer, his works, and his crazy wife.
And he drank himself to death at forty-four! What if he d lived into old age and kept writing? Ed would need an assistant, maybe two, perhaps even an entire staff. But then Ed knew that an early death was often the key to later acclaim (not to mention greater royalties).
After a few days, Ed finally got around to dealing with Professor Manchin. A quick review of the library s register revealed that this was a new person, a new request. Some of the veterans had been to Princeton so many times they simply called his number and said, Hey, Ed, I ll be there next Tuesday. Which was fine with Ed. Not so with Manchin. Ed went through the Portland State website and found his man. Undergraduate degree in American lit from the University of Oregon; master s from UCLA; adjunct gig now for three years. His photo revealed a rather plain-looking young man of perhaps thirty-five, the makings of a beard that was probably temporary, and narrow frameless eyeglasses.
In his letter, Professor Manchin asked whoever responded to do so by e-mail, and gave a private Gmail address. He said he rarely checked his university address. Ed thought, That s because you re just a lowly adjunct professor and probably don t even have a real office. He often had these thoughts, but, of course, was too professional to utter them to anyone else. Out of caution, the next day he sent a response through the Portland State server. He thanked Professor Manchin for his letter and invited him to the Princeton campus. He asked for a general idea of when he might arrive and laid out a few of the basic rules regarding the Fitzgerald collection. There were many, and he suggested that Professor Manchin study them on the library s website.
The reply was automatic and informed Ed that Manchin was out of pocket for a few days. One of Manchin s partners had hacked into the Portland State directory just deep enough to tamper with

Autor

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

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