By appearances Peter Scattergood leads a privileged life: a post as Assistant District Attorney, a loving wife, and a townhouse in Philadelphia's exclusive Society Hill. Assigned to an explosive homicide case--the murder of the mayor's nephew and the young man's beautiful mistress--the power and prestige he's always craved seem within his grasp.
But soon Peter's illusion of success shatters. His wife walks out on their seven-year marriage and vanishes. The double-murder case casts a shadow of doubt on his most trusted peers. And, in a moment of weakness, Peter enters into an affair with a woman whose greatest skill is arousing suspicion.
Now, Peter Scattergood is about to discover the desperate lengths he will go to uncover the terrible truth that lies with deadly patience somewhere between the mystery of his wife's disappearance and the dangerous secret at the heart of a shocking crime.
Stunned by the author's mastery As I listened to Harrison's book on tape, I was stunned by his mastery. His thorough and painfully honest examination of the protagonist, his almost sadistic ability to continue suspense and increase tension, his beautiful prose style -- all of these make me admire this author. I am inspired by this novel.
I Had to Struggle to Finish This This is the literary debut of Colin Harrison, who writes what are known as "literary suspense" novels. I recently read his latest book, THE HAVANA ROOM, and enjoyed it. So I decided to try another one of his novels, and I thought I would start with his first effort.
Unfortunately, BREAK AND ENTER is terrible. This book is pretentious, overblown, sensationalistic and just plain unplesant.
There are two murder cases in this novel, but both of them take a back seat to the dysfunctional marriage of Peter Scattergood, the assistant DA protagonist. Harrison devotes more prose to the personal life and thoughts of Scattergood than the murder cases he works on.
This would be acceptable if Scattergood was a likable character, but he isn't.
Scattergood, the "hero" of BREAK AND ENTER refuses to accept the breakup of his marriage and begins to stalk his wife, and engages in a wide variety of self-destructive behavior throughout the book. His most annoying mistake is an affair with an older woman named Cassandra, a cartoonish vamp character who has an insatiable appetitite for sex with younger men. The final confrontation between Cassandra and Scattergood is so over-the-top that it's simply laughable.
Harrison is great with words, but he pretty much fails in BREAK AND ENTER to construct an engaging plotline with likable characters and believable dialogue. My advice is to read THE HAVANA ROOM instead if you want to give Colin Harrison's work a try.
For a novel with a somewhat similar plotline that is a hundred times better than this one, I would suggest THE FALLEN by T. Jefferson Parker.
This novel has its highlights, aside from that... a disaster Harrison is a gifted author who has yet to achieve mastery of his field. This is I think his first book and I have to say that it reads like he is still trying to figure out how to piece together a novel. This book is advertised as a legal thriller, and that plot line does hold together this story, but in actuality, this book contains two stories. One, the legal aspect, is pretty well written and I was kept turning the pages in anticipation of its conclusion. But the other component of this novel probably outweighs the legal half of the book in the number of pages dedicated to its portrayal. This second story is concerned with the marriage of the protagonist and is very very painful to read.
Peter, the protagonist, is probably not very smart. He is an incredibly self-centered young ADA in Philadelphia. At the same time he is altruistic. He is insanely devoted to his wife who has left him, yet destroys his marriage with a wanton lust. This book is filled with contradictions that I suppose every human contains inside ones soul, but the over all effect achieved here in the book is the portrayal of a man who is at his essence pretty damn disgusting. I found it impossible to feel empathy towards Peter. And Harrison as an author delights in setting up one situation after another where Peter plays the fool and leaves the reader in a space where you will be yelling at the man to not do what he is doing. It's akin to watching someone you want to like bash his head into the wall repeatedly.
So, the legal aspect is good, better than Grisham, and I will look forwards to more Harrison novels in the future. But the divorce plot line is just so badly conceived that it brings this whole novel down.
A good book with a mediocre ending I've read all but one of Colin Harrison's books. I love his blunt style, and I usually have a hard time putting the them down once I've started reading. I've often started reading, expecting to stop after 1/2 and hour, only to look up at the clock and realized its been well over an hour.
However, that being said, these books have all been ruined by a mediocre ending that leaves you saying, "Well, that was certainly anti-climactic."
Was it bad enough to put me off his other writing? Not at all. It didn't stop me from buying all of his books. It's just a small quibble.
Sticking Pins In Dolls Devotees of Voodoo will be happy to note that Colin Harrison's new novel once again brings us a protagonist whom the author slowly destroys. Mr. Harrison uses up a whole quiver of needles while sticking them in his character of Peter Scattergood. Peter's an upstanding, decent assistant district attorney who is assigned a case involving the murder of the mayor's nephew. Peter investigates the murder, and comes up with more leads than the police. Is the criminal investigation the main plot of the story? Perhaps not. Peter's wife has left him and he is disconsolate; he needs to win her back. He tries unsuccessfully to mend the relationship, and, to our dismay, turns into a stalker. What a paradox as his legal ethics begin conflicting with the unethical behavior in his personal life. He becomes seriously deluded in his belief that his marriage will be saved.
Colin Harrison frequently presents us with extremely fallible humans. They tend to persist in following a bad turn along one of life's roads. Reason falls victim to rationalization. You want to slap Peter Scattergood in the face, and hear him say, "Thanks, I needed that." So once again we have a Harrison novel in which it is hard to identify with those who live in its pages. For those who do like CH, however, this is another rewarding read.
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