One of the minor annoyances Tom copes with is what he terms the Cult of Catcher in the Rye. Tom states every teacher in his school assigns Catcher in the Rye as mandatory reading, thereby sucking any literary, historical or rebellious merit out of the novel. The ironic part is that Tom Henderson and Holden Caulfield have much in common especially in their disaffected world view, difficulty of dealing with their peers, and even the odd detail of having a younger sister and emotionally distant parents.
Partway through the novel Tom finds a box of his father’s old books, including Catcher in the Rye and Brighton Rock, which he decides is the best book ever. Inside one of these books he finds an old coded message from his father to an unknown friend. This propels Tom into investigating his father’s death in an attempt to determine if the accident that killed his father was truly an accident, a murder or something else entirely.
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