Break And Enter [Hardcover]

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.

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.

This dense novel is layered with emotional baggage and a difficult case hampered by special interests and the manipulation of the legal system. Philadelphia ADA Peter Scattergood is finishing a murder case, achieving a pyrrhic victory for the parents of a slaughtered girl when he is approached with an offer he cannot refuse: the new mayor's nephew has been murdered and the mayor wants a swift resolution. Not yet suspicious of his boss's rationale for choosing him to head the legal aspect of the case, Scattergood is caught in a deep personal dilemma, his marriage fracturing under the demands of his career and a wife whose insecurities cause her to question the direction of their life together. At the crux of the novel is Peter's mental state, an increasing obsession with his wife, Janice, and the life he senses is slipping away permeating every facet of his anguished existence.

Given to overthinking, what is a powerful and precise legal mind doesn't serve Peter well in his marriage. Constantly assessing and reassessing motives and actions, Peter is hampered by an emotional gulf, unable to break free from habits that now inhibit his spontaneity. Losing himself in the details of his cases, Peter is unable to control his thoughts or actions, tracking Janice's whereabouts since she moved out of their home. Terrified that their time out will become a permanent estrangement, even a divorce, Scattergood cajoles Janice, hoping to worm his way back into her good graces. Meanwhile, the murder of the mayor's nephew takes on more ominous tones, a second murder, a questionable police response time and the early arrest of a suspect. The case has resolved too easily, Peter deeply troubled by the methodology of the detectives at the crime scene and a pervasive presence by his boss, Hoskins.

Following Janice, engaging a divorce attorney and attempting to uncover the specifics kept from him regarding the murders, Peter is bogged down by emotional despair, sluggish in his responses and childish in his desperate urgency to win Janice back. It is this unstable mental terrain that sets the tone in this engaging mystery, a quagmire of inappropriate actions and an increasingly stressful work environment- not to mention an ill-timed affair that wreaks more havoc on the embattled protagonist. A driven man struggling to retain his moral center, Peter finds himself humbled, the careful construct of his world crumbling under the assault of unexpected emotions and the manipulation of his case by others. A terribly flawed character, Scattergood is a man of the times, a character study of contemporary society, where the moral and the expedient do not always coexist. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

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