Brothers Keepers

by Donald E. Westlake

Overview

What will a group of monks do when their century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise?

What will a group of monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. "Thou Shalt Not Steal" is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a Park Avenue address.

Returning to bookstores for the first time in three decades, BROTHERS KEEPERS offers not only a master class in comedy from one of the most beloved mystery writers of all time but also a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on loss, temptation, and how we treat our fellow man.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785657153
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Series:	Hard Case Crime
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	313,920
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Donald E. Westlake is widely regarded as one of the great crime writers of the 20th Century. He won three Edgar Awards and was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America. Many of his books have been made into movies; Westlake also wrote the screenplay for "The Grifters," for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Editorial Reviews

12/17/2018

In this fast and easy comedy of errors first published in 1975 from MWA Grand Master Westlake (1933–2008), real estate developers cast avaricious eyes on the Manhattan monastery of the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum. Brother Benedict and the 15 other monks in the mendicant order scramble to save their home. They can’t compete on the financial front. They can barely negotiate their way out of the neighborhood. Too many pages may be expended lovingly detailing street and train routes when the robed heroes go out to confront the developers, but one of their excursions introduces Benedict to Eileen Flattery, the daughter of the man who holds the deed to the property. Pursuit of Eileen eventually takes Benedict all the way to Puerto Rico. If this isn’t a typical Westlake heist caper, the action does feature frantic searches for 100-year-old lease agreements, bugging devices, and a touch of burglary and arson. And what reader can resist the punning reference to “felonious monks”? Even a minor work such as this one from this gifted writer is an unalloyed pleasure. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Westlake's sweetly consecrated hero, at once disconcertingly direct and utterly clueless, will bring you to your feet cheering for his impossible cause." - Kirkus Reviews

"This delightful mixture of mirth and mystery is classic Westlake." - Booklist

“An unalloyed pleasure.” - Publishers Weekly


"This newly republished stand-alone caper novel with a twist is full of quirky characters and Westlake’s trademark humor.... It’s a quiet little gem that you'll want to keep and reread." - Book Reporter

“It doesn’t matter whether you care about religious orders or real estate law, Westlake’s writing makes for another winner.” - Borg.com

From the Publisher

2018-11-13

A tiny band of monks facing the loss of their monastery in midtown Manhattan fight back in this slight, humorous 1975 charmer.

You wouldn't expect to find the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum lodged on Park Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets, and come New Year's Day, you probably won't. While they were meditating on otherworldly matters, their 99-year-lease, last renewed in 1876, was optioned from Daniel Flattery, the current owner of their land, by developer Roger Dwarfmann, who plans to raze historic structures all along the block to make way for a 67-story office building. The 16 sort-of-cloistered monks can't even find their copy of the lease, and they haven't a clue how to stop the wrecking ball from exiling them to the likes of New Paltz. The most important upshot of a delegation's visit to Dan Flattery is that Brother Benedict, the winsome narrator who's been a member of CONM for 10 years, falls head over heels in love with Eileen Flattery Bone, their leaseholder's daughter. Anyone familiar with Westlake's peerless crime comedies (Help I Am Being Held Prisoner, 1974, etc.) will be confident that the unlikely romance between Brother Benedict, ne Charles Rowbottom, and the divorcée who predictably describes herself as "the sincerest of Flatterys" will end in laughter, and the high point of the tale is this modern Candide's trip to Puerto Rico to plead both his order's case and his own to a young woman with nothing but sun and surf on her mind.

Not much in the way of felonies, and most of the other 15 monks are ciphers. But Westlake's sweetly consecrated hero, at once disconcertingly direct and utterly clueless, will bring you to your feet cheering for his impossible cause.

Kirkus Reviews