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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2002, 464 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2003, 368 pages
A searing summer thriller - an unstoppable tale of love and vengeance among the super-rich and super-ruthless.
Jack Mullen is in law school in New York City when the news comes that his brother, Peter, has drowned in the ocean off East Hampton. Jack knows his brother practically grew up in the water, and that this couldn't be an accident. Someone must have wanted his brother dead.
But the police say otherwise. As Jack tries to uncover details of his brother's last night, he confronts a maddening barricade of lawyers, police, and paid protectors who separate the wealthy summer residents from local workers like Peter. Motivated by a hundred forms of grief, Jack rallies his hometown friends to help him find the truth of Peter's death-no matter how rich or corrupt the people who stand in their way.
Jack's relentless crusade puts him into a head-on collision with one of the most powerful and ruthless men in New York, a man who wipes out resistance with a snap of his fingers. As it unfolds that his brother was involved with some of the richest women and men in America-in ways Jack never imagined-his dream of justice fades. Only if he can somehow beat the rich at their own game will he be able to avenge his brother.
The Beach House is a breathtaking legal thriller of deceit and revenge-with a finale so shocking, it could only have come from the mind of James Patterson.
Prologue
PETER RABBIT
1
IT'S LIKE DANCING SITTING DOWN. Squeeze -- tap -- release -- twist. Left hand -- right foot -- left hand -- right hand.
Everything unfolds in perfect sequence and rhythm, and every time I twist back the heated, gummy, rubber-covered throttle, the brand-new, barely broke in, 628-pound, 130- horsepower BMW K1200 motorcycle leaps forward like a thoroughbred under the whip.
And another snapshot of overpriced Long Island real estate blurs by.
It's Thursday night, Memorial Day weekend, fifteen minutes from the start of the first party in what promises to be another glorious season in the Hamptons. And not just any party. The party. The intimate $200,000 get-together thrown every year by Barry Neubauer and his wife, Campion, at their $40 million beach house in Amagansett.
And I'm late.
I toe it down to fourth gear, yank the throttle back again, and now I'm really flying. Parting traffic on Route 27 like Moses on a Beemer.
My knees...
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