Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Basically a hatchet-job based mainly on one dodgy lodge., 4 Mar 2002
The whole book revolves around what appears to be just ONE rather dubious masonic lodge given mainly to police membership.The odd corrupt police member appears to have got the od criminal or two into that lodge and the whole ethos of the book seems to come over as this one dubious lodge is representative of the whole Grand Lodge of England and its affiliate lodges.The pictures painted bear absolutely no resemblance to my own experience over 53 years in various Craft Lodges of the English Constitution.Basically the book is dihonest in trying to get over a view that Englands 600,000 male freemasons are a dishonest and corrupt bunch,A hatchet-job ad nothing else.
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19 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inside the Brotherhood, 26 Dec 2002
By A Customer
Having read this book it left a bad taste in my mouth. The content focused on the alleged workings of one lodge in particular, and it's alleged involvment in criminal activites,conspiricy theories even murder. Each chapter was just a list of again alleged activities with a thin link to freemasonry with the characters involved in the event. The more I read the more it was all just repeating parts of previous chapters. It is supposedly a follow on from 'The Brotherhood'which was entitled 'The secrets of Freemasonry',as far as I am aware there are no secrets, so how can there be further secrets?
Dont bother with this one.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incisive, concise, frightening... A necessary reading!, 22 Mar 2009
This is a milestone book. Following up from Stephen Knight's work Short takes us on a frightening journey into one of the oldest British institutions, both its public halls and dark underbelly. Having read the book I have never regarded the British society in the same light as before.
The first thing to say, especially given some strange misspelled reviews below, is that this is far from a hatchet-job. Short is a journalist whose other work bears the trademarks of pithy intelligence, adherence to facts and incisive open-mindedness. Nowhere in the book does he demonstrate an irrational prejudice or resultant credulity. Nor does he recycle rumor or engage in baseless slander. This is a dispassionate, profound investigation into the role of Freemasonry in key British institutions such as the judiciary and law enforcement, local and central government, education, as well as private and public sectors. He also examines the effects of Freemasonry on the Freemasons' families.
The outcomes are chilling. Given that Short only uses evidence of the quality to stand up in court the reader is left very frightened and very angry. Chapter 3 will demonstrate how corrupt collusion between defrauding contractors and local government officials in London was covered up by the Met, at the price of witch-hunting and driving out of the force the one honest officer who insisted on investigating this larceny. The same chapter discloses how crucial evidence of illegal killings by rogue RUC men was covered up by the joint efforts of the Northern Irish Department of Public Prosecutions, the RUC and Manchester Police, again at the price of ruin to the officer who conducted the investigation. The evidence in both cases unequivocally points to highly-placed Masons acting in concert to protect not merely fellow Masons but institutions and informal relationships that benefit Masons.
Part 4 tells of a disputed inheritance where an illegal will of a comatose woman, made hours before her death, was authenticated and enforced by the concerted efforts of a powerful Northern lodge with the aim of supporting two prominent lodge members, the dead woman's son (Master of that lodge) and his solicitor, against the 'average' lodge member and his wife, the dead woman's son-in-law and daughter. The family was hounded and the husband expelled from his lodge for daring to challenge the suspect will. No prizes to guess who got to keep the inheritance.
Part 5 tells the story of a fervent Mason ruined by no lesser institution than the Grand Lodge itself. He displeased the august governing body by an act of Masonic charity.
Another tale in Part 4 tells of a policeman who got away with homicide with the assistance of a friendly Masonic coroner. The policeman struck out with a torch at a passing teenage biker, causing him to crash to his death. There were witnesses to the homicide, yet the murderous Mr Plodd was cleared of all wrongdoing.
Perhaps the most scandalous tale in the book concerned the well-known saga of Dr Forbes-Proctor, the infamous 'Dr Dram' from the Kyle of Tongue, and his decades-long inebriated rule of malpractice and abuse against the small population of this isolated Scottish outpost. A Mason supported throughout the saga by the Masonic establishment in the GMC, the doctor who put up a note in his surgery suggesting that the patients who wanted a second opinion ask it of his dog was allowed to continue his tyranny over Tongue, despite the many complaints by his patients. This case was recently in the news once again, 23 (!) years after the first complaint was filed.
The worst is a story of a racist campaign conducted in the education department of a London borough in the 1980s. This is a story of prejudice, spite and withering malice allowed to run its course because its perpetrator was a highly-placed Mason, supported by other Masons in that local authority.
To conclude, this book is a must. Get it and judge for yourself. You will not be disappointed.
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