Customer Reviews

Break and Enter

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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.

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.

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.

I love Colin Harrison's work. I put him right up there with Michael Connelly and Lee Child. He needs to write more books!

Harrison delves into the fragility of human nature's ability to walk the thin line between violent and non-violent reactions. Debilitating codependency to people, places, substances or power is a thread that runs throughout this murder mystery plot.
The author shows us the dichotomy of the ego: how it can help us to achieve the highest goals or when its power is given away can bring destruction to the very things we seek. Using the dogma of the Quaker beliefs was a clever ploy.

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 was spell bound by Colin Harrison's excellent legal thriller right up to the final few chapters. Harrison weaves a clever tale around the central character, Peter Scattergood, an assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. As the story begins, Scattergood is on the verge of completing another successful prosecution in a case of sexual assault and murder. He is about to take on a high profile prosecution following the murder of the nephew of the city's black mayor. His assignment to this case is the result of self interested political motivation by both his boss, the DA, and the mayor himself. Scattergood is in a lose-lose situation with his natural support mechanism, the police investigators, being in the pocket of the DA.

That Scattergood's wife walks out on him at this very time makes his life almost unbelievably challenging. His own parents seem to have more sympathy for his wife than for him. He is almost penniless too with heavy financial commitments leaving him with virtually no discretionary disposable income. Far from bringing any relief into his desperate situation, a casual and very sexual affair, only adds to his unhappiness and causes his guilty conscience to work overtime. He desperately loves his wife and would do almost anything, legal or illegal, to have her return to him.

At the stage where only a few pages of the book remained to be turned, I was concerned that all the loose ends in the tale couldn't be neatly tied up. Were my concerns real or unfounded? You will have to read the book for yourself and find out. It is an excellent story and easy to read.

I was surprised to find that this may be the only book which Colin Harrison has written. I have read reviews of "Afterburn", "Bodies Electric" and "Manhattan Nocturne" written by Colin Harrison, but it seems that may have been another author with the same name. There was no link or reference to "Break And Enter". My research is clearly not yet complete.

It is always a pleasure to discover a new author and be able to look forward to the promise of reading all his/her other books. Colin, if it wasn't you who wrote those three other books please pick up your pen, or fire up your lap top and start on another novel.