The Jekyl Island Club [Hardcover]

Brent Monahan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2000

Located on the idyllic Georgia coast, Jekyl Island was the playground of the rich at the turn of the last century. Vanderbilts, Goulds, Rockefellers, and other members of elite society vacationed there, enjoying the finest aspects of Southern hospitality that money could buy and importing the rest from New York. Indeed, the money was good: the club's one hundred members controlled one sixth of the nation's wealth.

When one of the club's members is shot to death on the island, his fellow captains of industry anxiously conclude it was as a hunting accident. Is the impending visit to the Jekyl Island Club by President McKinley the only reason? Could J. P. Morgan himself have been the one who pulled the trigger? Whose side is member and millionaire newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer on?

The answer to whether or not the richest of the rich can literally get away with murder lies in the hands of local sheriff John le Brun, a wily Civil War veteran who has his own agenda with the Yankees who bought Jekyl Island.

This ingenious novel raises Brent Monahan to the first rank of contemporary entertainers. The real Jekyl Island Club, its members, and many real events from American history of the era are interwoven within a plot that could easily have happened. Cleverly plotted and delightfully told, The Jekyl Island Club is suspenseful storytelling at its finest.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From its incorporation in 1886 to the early years of World War II, Georgia's Jekyl Island played host to the Jekyl Island Club, where members controlled an obscene portion of the world's wealth and the fortunes and fates of men and nations were routinely won and lost. Brent Monahan, who is more commonly associated with vampires (1993's The Book of Common Dread and 1995's The Blood of the Covenant) and spirits (1997's The Bell Witch: An American Haunting), uses it as the site of an 1899 crime. Monahan pits Sheriff John Le Brun against none other than J.P. Morgan, as the former attempts to solve the murder of a club member and the latter attempts to dismiss the crime, for personal reasons, as the work of a local poacher. That Morgan is a man of enormous influence is obvious. That Le Brun is a man with powers of his own is demonstrated when a chess match he's playing is interrupted by an errant bustle and a rematch is logically proposed.

"No need," Le Brun said, groaning softly as he bent low from his chair to retrieve fallen pieces. "It was pawn to king four, pawn to king four." He began placing the chessmen on the board. "Knight to king's bishop three, knight to queen's bishop three. Bishop to knight five, pawn to queen's rook three. Bishop to rook four, knight to bishop three. Knight to bishop three, pawn to queen three. Then pawn to queen four and pawn to queen's knight four. Your move."

As it becomes abundantly clear that Le Brun is as far from being a rube in sheriff's clothing as Jay Gould is from standing in a soup line, Morgan parries and Le Brun thrusts amidst a shifting stream of adversaries and allies. These include newspaper tycoon Joseph Pulitzer, Judge Iley Tidewell and his son, Le Brun's chief deputy Warfield Tidewell, assorted robber barons and titans of industry, and any number of duplicitous, nefarious, and dangerously armed factota. In the end, Monahan has crafted in The Jekyl Island Club a well-plotted and richly peopled period whodunit that rises, with an almost imperceptible pitch, to a place where lovers of mystery long to travel but rarely seem to go. --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

A swank Southern resort for the nation's elite at the turn of the last century forms the evocative backdrop for this first mystery by horror writer Monahan (The Book of Common Dread). Prominent names like Morgan, Vanderbilt, Gould and Pulitzer gather on Jekyl Island off the coast of Georgia to be pampered in opulent seclusion. When one of the club members, Erastus Springer, is shot dead in an apparent hunting accident, the powerful close ranks. The timing of this and a subsequent stabbing death is unfortunate, as President McKinley is due to visit the island to debate the country's plans to acquire colonies. The local cop with the hard job of solving the crimes and soothing the monster egos is Sheriff John Le Brun. Possessed of a sharp mind, Le Brun isn't the bumpkin the wealthy take him for. He never really attempts to smooth the moneyed feathers. In fact, he has his own personal (and financial) reasons for stirring things up. Monahan has a deft touch with the foibles of the period; he works hard at capturing the voices of the resort's black servants, and carefully details the mechanics of practicing medicine in 1899. Instead of providing a plethora of suspects, however, he chooses to develop the personalities of the real-life tycoonsAwhich are interesting but not plot sustaining. The mixed result is a mystery rich in social history, but poor in narrative drive. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312261837
• ISBN-13: 978-0312261832
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,505,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars History Comes to Life, August 6, 2000

By 

John W. Bates "jaydubyah" (Americus, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jekyl Island Club (Hardcover)

Many Georgians and many tourists enjoy the recreation and relaxation of Jekyll Island, one of the jewels of Georgia's "Golden Isles." One of the attractions for visitors to the Island is staying at, or visiting, the restored hotel, The Jekyll Island Club, and touring the "cottages" built by the millionaires who originally developed the island more than one hundred years ago. In The Jekyl Island Club, Brent Monahan takes us back to the time when J. P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, and other tycoons and robber barons vacationed in splendor, and ran their little island as part of their fiefdoms. When one of the guests on the island is found dead from a gunshot, however, they have to acknowledge the local authority, at least enough to have the Brunswick sheriff make official their idea of what happened. Enter John Le Brun, high sheriff of Brunswick and a person with good reason to hold a grudge against the captains of industry who occupy what was formerly his home. Le Brun has his own problems, including a brand new chief deputy who recently returned home is disgrace from Philadelphia and is the son of the local judge. The judge is not a fan of the sheriff's, and is totally in the pocket of the Jekyl Island Club membership. In launching his investigation Le Brun must face the disdain, if not enmity, of club members and some of their staff; concerns about the loyalty of his own deputy; his own feelings; and his sense of justice. The pressure is on, in part because President McKinley is soon to visit the Island, traveling over from Thomasville where he is vacationing at the vacation home of his advisor, Ohio Senator Hanna, to meet with the some of the millionaires and House Speaker Reed, a guest of Morgan's. President McKinley's visit actually happened, and Monahan uses that historical fact and the residual glamor of the Jekyl Island Club, to fashion a neat little mystery. In an afterword Monahan also notes that before and after the millionaires' ownership, Jekyll was spelled with two "l's." While it was their private preserve, there was only one. While this book is not a great mystery, it is a solid one. The greatest charm, however, is in its bringing to life the era of conspicuous opulence and filling out the pictures today's visitors to Jekyll Island have in their imaginations.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really good page turner, April 16, 2004

By 

John Tilelli MD "Bookaholic" (Apopka, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jekyl Island Club (Paperback)

I am not a Southern native, but I have had the great pleasure of a weekend at the Jekyll Island Club. There, over oysters and champagne you can can easily imagine a long forgotten patrician America, who spent their weekends "roughing it" in unmatched splendor. One can still have brunch there, served by starched, tuxedo-clad waiters, after whcih play croquet on the lawn or golf on a pretty good course once the property of the Goodyears and the Morgans.

This is the wonderful setting for a period mystery by experienced author Brent Moynahan, who deftly crafts a tale of murder, revenge, avarice and envy set in a prestigious capitalist resort. One of the members, limited by invitation only to the 100 richest men in the US, Erastus Springer, has been found dead, apparantly shot during his morning constitutional. John LeBrun, Brunswick sherriff has been called almost as an afterthought to solve the case, presumably with the least fuss possible to the powerful members. LeBrun, who is above corruption, is thwarted by the members, especially J.P. Morgan and Joseph Pulizer, arch captialist and arch populist rivals in everything except their rabid dedication to the Club.

If flawed, this novel is not the nail-biting suspenseful mystery that leads us along with crumbs of evidence to the great "aha" at the end. It does though admirably succeed in its characterization of the people, especially of the very rich and vary poor, who made fin-de-siecle America, and lived bathed in the resntments and ignorance of the War of Northern Agression. It beautifully paints Georgia of the era and tells a story as much tension and grit as charm and wit. By the satisfying end we care less about the plot reaching its logical conclusion as we do seeing a good man prevail. Heartily recommeended, and and admirable Summer read, especially if you are poolside at one of the Barrier Island resorts.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific KickOff to a Great Series of Mysteries, June 11, 2006

By 

Jonathan Maberry "Multiple Bram Stoker Award-... (Bucks County, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jekyl Island Club (Paperback)

The Jeyll Island Club by Brent Monahan was a geat read. Moody, mysterious, filled with fascinating historical detail, and introducing a new hero in retired sheriff John Le Brun. The book has all everything you need to spend an evening in a comfortable chair with your mind wandering into the strange past of Jekyll Island. Definitely a thinking-man's thriller.