The Secret [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Harold Robbins (Author), Hayward Morse (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2001

The world's bestselling novelist is back with Secrets, a steamy novel chronicling the rise of a lingerie chain. Jerry Cooper of The Predators is back to launch his new empire of intimate women's apparel. He now has a son, Les Cooper, a streetwise young lawyer who slowly uncovers the family's mob involvement, a secret which Jerry has desperately tried to conceal until he finds himself in need of a lawyer. Combining the grit of his early work with the glamour of his later novels, Robbins once again provides readers with a pantheon of street-raised hustlers and anti-heroes who would use their hard-won knowledge to claw their way up the ladder of success.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A sequel to The Predators, Robbins's second posthumous novel opens with a flawless scene. Len Cooper is drinking gin and playing poker in his prep school dorm while two of his buddies masturbate over copies of Hustler. Comes a knock on the door, and grim news: Len's beautiful and adored French mother, Giselle, is dead, and his forbidding father, Jerry, is on his way to the school. The mix of comedy and tragedy, grossness and tender feelings, are described in vivid language at perfect tempo. Alas, the rest of the book is a long, slow downward slide, giving rise to suspicion that Robbins, who died in 1997, never revised the final draft. Alternately told from Len's and Jerry's points of view, the narrative chronicles the spectacular rise of the naughty lingerie empire Cheeks. The "secret"? Just ask Len's second wife, Vittoria, n?e Castellano, daughter of a capo, widow of tough guy Louie Luchese. Scanty as to motivation, obsessively covering (and baring) breasts and buttocks, Robbins's roman ? clef is more catalogue than story. Subplots explore sweatshop conditions, trade relations with China and technology millionaires, but all roads lead to nipple clips and crotchless panties. Empire-builders, fathers, husbands: the men in Robbins's world are, at heart, still teenage boys masturbating to Hustler. Perhaps that's Vicky's real secret. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Published posthumously, The Secret is Robbins' sequel to The Predators (1998), which told the story of Jerome Cooper's rise to power after the Mafia kills his family. Jerome's story is continued along with that of his son, Len. Jerome is trying to raise the boy while keeping his affiliations with organized crime a secret. Len grows up learning that people are merely tools to achieve gratification and power. He becomes a lawyer, intending on making his own way in the world but gradually enters more and more of his father's world. In the meantime, Jerome has transformed a $3 million nest egg into a billion-dollar chain of lingerie stores. As the company grows, the Coopers not only have to battle the Mob and a Chinese cartel, but perhaps more dangerously, their own passions. The story is chock-full of all the gritty characters and steamy sex that Robbins' fans desire. On the other hand, the characterizations are flat, the plot predictable, and the sex tiresome--not that the intended audience is likely to notice. Robbins is proving as prolific in death as he was in life. His next posthumous novel, slated for a late 2000 publication, is titled Piranhas. Eric Robbins --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: ISIS Audio Books (June 1, 2001)
• ISBN-10: 0753111764
• ISBN-13: 978-0753111765
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Let the dead stay dead, April 28, 2000

By 

Peggy Werner - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret (Hardcover)

One of the best books I ever read was A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins. Great characters and a great story. I think I've read that book 5 times over the years.

The Secret - should have been kept a secret. No plot - no story except sex. Characterization not too shabby - but nothing extraordinary

Leave Harold Robbins alone. These are notes that someone embellished and is trying to characterize as Robbins'. Let the dead stay dead.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not too bad a legacy, July 26, 2001

By 

R. L. MILLER (FT LAUDERDALE FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret (Mass Market Paperback)

This one is more like Harold the Storyteller. Some of his more recent work has been as much about sex as it has been about character development-and some rather debased sex at that. Which was a shame-over his long career, Harold Robbins has created some of the most interesting and sympathetic characters I have ever encountered in fiction. Film industry pioneers. Union leaders. South American revolutionaries. Young prizefighters. Auto industry pioneers. You name it. This one is the sequel to "The Predators", the story of a lingerie industry magnate (??) and it's two novels in one-a father and his son. It switches back and forth between the two men in the way Evan Hunter's "Sons" did with three generations of American fighting men. There's one small flaw in this book which is more amusing than off-putting-in the early stages of father Jerry Cooper's setting up the undie company, he has to deal with some mob types, and I'm afraid Harold Robbins is no Mario Puzo there. You get a family with the name Boiardo and of course the head of the family is called "Chef". They have a cousin named Napolitano and everybody calls him "Ice Cream". Otherwise, this is a pretty decent book. Part of Cooper & Son's business dealings involve a subsidiary in Hong Kong around the time of the "Handover" to China (coincidently, I just finished a Stephen Coonts book set there at that time). Being that clothing is involved, the issue of sweat shop labor comes up. This is hardly a landmark book for Robbins, but it's more consistent with why I was one of his steady readers for decades. What a relief-I thought he was totally losing it. At least he goes out with something readable. Gonna miss ya, old timer.

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, October 23, 2004

By 

Alina Popkova "AP" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret (Mass Market Paperback)

Before I picked up this book I knew that it was written by a ghost writer, posthumously. But since it was a "sequel" I wanted to get it anyway. What a waste of time! It is obvious that Harold Robbins had jotted down some notes and ideas and someone with no talent whatsoever had tried to make it into a novel. It is fairly clear to distinguish some of the passages that are Robbins' and then there are those that he would be ashamed to even look at. There is actually a part where the same sentence is repeated, with two words changed, on the next page. The intensity of characters, the eroticism, the storytelling that are so evident in most of Robbins' work is nowhere to be found in The Secret.