The Fraternity of the Stone: An Espionage Thriller

David Morrell

Nov 2011 · David Morrell

About this ebook

Drew MacLane is a star agent in Scalpel, an organization named for its purpose: precise surgical removal. Assassination. Then MacLane decides to stop killing. He withdraws and retreats to a monastery, where for six years he lives the life of a hermit. But then someone tracks him down, leaving a trail of bodies. Someone who knows all about him - and will stop at nothing to destroy him. Less
From acclaimed Thriller Master, David Morrell, comes a classic espionage tale that changed the genre, paving the way for the historical/religious thrillers of Dan Brown, Steve Berry, and James Rollins.

In a remote monastery in Vermont, a mysterious man has spent six years alone in a cell, doing penance for unnamed sins that he committed for his government. His only human contact is the hand that delivers his spartan meals through a slot in his door. He allows himself only one small pleasure, the companionship of a mouse. When the mouse dies, nibbling bread, a terrible suspicion makes him finally leave his sanctuary and confront the ruthless enemies that he prayed he had left behind.

Beginning with the Crusades and the origin of the word “assassin,” THE FRATERNITY OF THE STONE was the first novel to deal with Opus Dei, the Vatican’s civilian intelligence community. If you like to read about ancient conspiracies that threaten the modern world, this is where the genre began.

Ratings and reviews

Overly religious theme. Difficult to accept story line and ending. Not one of his better books.

Brilliant.

About the author

David Morrell, an award-winning Canadian writer of horror fiction, was born in 1943 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He was educated at the University of Waterloo and earned his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. Morrell is best known as the creator of John Rambo, the hero of his first novel, First Blood. The novel was adapted for screen and starred Sylvester Stallone. Although Morrell was not happy with the depiction of the Rambo character in the movie, he did write several sequels to First Blood and two further scripts for the sequels to the original movie. He also wrote a number of other books including The Brotherhood of the Rose which became a best seller in 1984. David Morrell has written one scholarly work, John Barth: An Introduction, published by Pennsylvania State University in 1977 and has taught at the University of Iowa. He now lives in the United States with his wife and daughter (another child, a son, is deceased).