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''The Rag and Bone Shop'' (2001) is a book written by Robert Cormier. The book was published posthumously in 2001; Cormier died in 2000. The novel takes its name from the final line of William Butler Yeats's poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion".〔William Butler Yeats. "Poetry, Drama, and Prose". Ed. Patricia Pethica. p.128〕 ==Plot== The story is of the brutal murder of a seven-year-old girl named Alicia Bartlett and the interrogation of a twelve-year-old boy, named Jason Dorrant, who is her friend and the last known person to see her alive. Trent, an expert interrogator, who is known to get confessions that seem impossible to obtain and who has never lost a case, is called in for the case. Trent does this interrogation in order to be in good graces with a senator of Massachusetts. Jason Dorrant is an average 12-year-old boy. He was a lonely kid with few and/or no friends at all except maybe Alicia, whom he finds to be one of the most fascinating people. He says that she is like a little old lady, he said. After her death, Trent brings in Jason as his main suspect. Trent has never failed to get a confession from someone, and a lot is riding on this particular case for Trent to succeed. Jason is brought into a small white-walled room with no ventilation, a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, and Trent begins this interrogation. Jason is an innocent boy who is told that the information he is providing is voluntary and has no idea about being a suspect in any way. Trent takes the information that Jason gives him and twists it into a distorted story that makes Jason look absolutely credible for Alicia's death. At one point Trent makes Jason look like a violent maniac simply because he reads and watches science fiction. By the end of the novel, Jason believes he is a blood-thirsty killer, thanks to Trent's distortion, and confesses to a crime he did not commit. Trent, with the confession tape in hand, walks towards a woman expecting to be praised for his handiwork, but she looks at Trent accusingly. She explains to him that Alicia's older brother was taken in for the murder and that there were witnesses. Alicia's brother was the killer, not Jason. She accuses him of making Jason confess. Trent is demoted and never worked as an interrogator again. Sadly, he left Jason fighting himself. Jason cannot decide if he is what he knows himself to be or if he is what he was told he was: "Did he kill her? No. Could he have killed her? No, but could he kill someone worthy of death? Say, a bully?" In a final twist of irony, Jason fulfills the role that Trent gave him, grabbing a butcher knife and heading to the nearest YMCA, where bully Bobo Kelton is. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Rag and Bone Shop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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