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Book Summary and Reviews of The Spire by Richard North Patterson

The Spire by Richard North Patterson

The Spire

A Novel

by Richard North Patterson

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2009, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Mark Darrow grew up in a small Ohio town with no real advantages beyond his intelligence and athletic ability. But thanks to the intervention of Lionel Farr—a professor at Caldwell, the local college—Darrow became an excellent student and, later, a superb trial lawyer. Now Farr asks his still-youthful protégé for a life-altering favor. An embezzlement scandal has threatened Caldwell's very existence—would Darrow consider becoming its new president?

Darrow accepts, but returning to his alma mater opens old wounds. Sixteen years ago, on the night of his greatest triumph as Caldwell's star quarterback, he discovered the body of a black female student named Angela Hall at the base of the Spire, the bell tower that dominates the leafy campus. His best friend, Steve Tillman, was charged with Angela's murder and ultimately sent to prison for life. But now, even as Darrow begins the daunting task of leading Caldwell, he discovers that the case against his friend left crucial questions unanswered. Despite his new obligations—and his deepening attachment to Farr's beautiful though troubled daughter—Darrow begins his own inquiry into the murder. Soon he becomes convinced that Angela's killer is still at large, but only when another mysterious death occurs does he understand that his own life is at risk.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] thoughtful if less than suspenseful thriller." - Publishers Weekly

"It's amazing that a pro like Patterson could have miscalculated so badly everything from the cluttered prologue, with its flashbacks within flashbacks, to the screamingly obvious identity of the villain ... Wait till next year." - Kirkus Reviews

"Sure to please fans of Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly, and James Lee Burke." - Library Journal

This information about The Spire was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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LARRY

Not to his usual standard
An average thriller. Patterson has written many better novels. This one is a bit disappointing and not worth paying retail for!

You can pretty well guess how it well end. Characters are not all that interesting and a bit too stereotyped and common place.

I expected a lot more from this author. I have read many of his other novels. They are much better.

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Author Information

Richard North Patterson Author Biography

Richard North Patterson was born on February 22, 1947 in Berkeley, California. He grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1968. In 1971 he graduated from Case Western Reserve Law School and went on to serve as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Ohio. He was a partner in several of the country's leading law firms and also served as the liaison for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to the Watergate Special Prosecutor.

He started writing at the age of 29 when he had completed law school. He began his first book, The Lasko Tangent, as part of a creative writing course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the category "Best First Mystery Novel (American)" in 1980.

In 1993, ...

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