The Third Brother

A Harvard freshman, Mike is spending his graduation summer as an intern with a Hong Kong news magazine. After weeks of boredom his editor sends him to Bangkok to track down Christopher Dorr, an old acquaintance of his parents and a brilliant journalist gone AWOL.

So begins a headlong journey that will lead a young man through nights of drinking, drugs and sex into the grip of events he cannot control. Then, with no warning, Mike is called back home to New York. Something terrible has happened to his family.

Nick McDonell's first novel Twelve sold over 300,000 copies and was published in twenty-four countries. It established its seventeen-year-old author as a remarkable voice of a new generation. His new novel The Third Brother moves with the speed and purpose of a bullet, offering a devastating portrait of a family caught between love and turmoil, and a young man struggling to understand his past and find his future.

Praise for The Third Brother:

‘Engrossing, with indelible scenes and a protagonist to care about.’

Kirkus Reviews

‘McDonell’s gift for eliciting strong emotional responses from such minimalist prose is remarkable…He is a precocious talent.’

Herald Sun

‘The Third Brother follows his best-selling Twelve, and while it’s fast-paced and “cool”, McDonell never sacrifices content for style…he welds character, plot and narrative structure seamlessly. You don’t have to be a twenty-something to enjoy this hugely impressive novel.’

Age

‘It’s hard to ignore the fact that Nick McDonell is 21 and this is his second novel. More remarkable is the assured tone of McDonell’s work. It is surefooted and calm in a knowing way. McDonell writes like a person with nothing to prove. That alone proves a lot.’

Sydney Morning Herald