The Brethren

The Brethren is a John Grisham novel about some former judges who engage in a Honey Trap scam while behind bars.

At the same time, the CIA is fixing the next election for US President for their own goals.

The two plots intersect when the scammers realize one of their scam victims is the guy whom the CIA is backing for President, and the two sets of schemers are pitted against each other.


 * The Alcoholic: Trevor Carson drinks to the point of having more booze than blood in his system. Hatlee Beech of the Brethren was one, but it led to him winding up behind bars.
 * Amoral Attorney: Trevor Carson, who assists the Brethren with their schemes. Ironically, when given the chance to fully embrace this trope, he actually has some conscience attacks about whether to fully commit to it.
 * Asshole Victim: Every side sees the people they don't like on the other as this.
 * Black and Grey Morality: The Brethren are the black, being felonious inmates in a prison screwing people over for their own gain, while the CIA is the grey. The latter is also screwing people over, but they have the saving grace of doing it to protect so many more, but it doesn't diminish the fact that their efforts are basically as scummy as the Brethren's, just on a bigger scale.
 * Cardboard Prison: Trumble Federal Prison has security that is essentially a joke, but since so few want to leave, no one is overly worried about it, especially since it's a pretty nice place for a minimum security prison.
 * Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: There aren't any unambiguous good guys anyone can cheer for in this story.
 * Evil Cripple: Teddy Maynard, DCI of the CIA. He's stuck in a wheelchair in constant agony, but it doesn't dent his mental acumen any, which he uses to manipulate politics and work against the Brethren later on.
 * Evil Old Folks: The story boils down one set of these plotting against another in the end.
 * Of the Brethren, it's noted that Joe Roy Spicer is the most evil of the three by many, even Spicer himself.
 * Kangaroo Court: Zigzagged. The Brethren serve as the "judges" of an inhouse court at their federal prison, and while they generally fix the verdicts in advance, most of them are quite fair based on the evidence they have and they are found to be a good influence on keeping order at the prison.
 * Karma Houdini: The Brethren become these by the end of the story since those plotting against them would find them more dangerous if they weren't.
 * Averted for the man the CIA saved from the Brethren. He thought he had saved himself from getting caught living a double life, but the CIA manages to surprise him at the last moment with knowledge that they know, and thus he realizes the CIA owns him..
 * Honey Trap: The Brethren's scheme is pretty simple: They write letters to married gay men living double lives, get enough facts to extort them while posing as potential gay lovers, then shake them down for money once the victims have fallen into the trap.
 * Hidden Depths: When Trevor sobers up and decides to put his brain to work, he proves very resourceful.
 * Renegade Russian: The CIA wants to fix US politics so they can neutralize the plots of a few of these.