The Heir

✍ Scribed by Paul Robertson

• Publisher: Baker Books;Bethany House Publishers
• Year: 2007;2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 177 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

It's a familiar plot: the death of a filthy rich relative-who of course altered his will just hours before his sudden demise-results in instant wealth for an heir no one expected. In this debut novel from Robertson, a computer programming consultant, young mogul Jason Boyer discovers that his newly minted fortune is tainted by his deceased robber-baron father's legacy of corruption, scandal and power brokering in New England. Will Jason find the moral courage to clean his corporate house and do something meaningful with his millions? And was his father's fatal car crash really an accident? Pacing is a problem throughout much of this story, which doesn't hit its stride and become a bona fide suspense novel until the final 50 pages. Most of the characters are routine stock figures-the upwardly mobile wife; the corpulent and scheming attorney-with only Jason's innocent younger brother Eric breaking the mold. Robertson offers some strong observations on greed and human nature, and adopts a refreshingly soft approach to religious faith. The humor, which could work well in another context, feels adolescent in such a dark tale. Despite promising themes and a decent plot, this God-and-mammon novel would benefit from stringent editing and stronger supporting characters.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Starred Review Robertson's first novel is a Gresham-like tale of intrigue and murder about the son, Jason Boyer, of a New England financial titan and kingmaker. Jason barely knew his father, a tough, remote man who sent Jason and his brother to boarding schools, but Jason becomes sole heir upon the old man's sudden death. Jason is cynical but uncorrupted, and his first impulse is to divest himself of the old man's holdings. Then the power that his inheritance commands seduces him, and he grows as ruthless as his father. And then, once more and finally, he sees the light and proceeds to clean up all that his father and he have befouled. Or, at any rate, he tries, in this suspenseful first novel with a lot of humor and well-drawn minor characters.

John Mort
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved

Library : General
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 9780764204692