Break and Enter: A Novel - Softcover

Harrison, Colin

3.46

189 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312979673 ISBN 13: 9780312979676

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2002

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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.

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About the Author:

COLIN HARRISON is the deputy editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of Break and Enter, Bodies Electric, and Manhattan Nocturne. He and his wife, Kathryn Harrison, live in Brooklyn.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this exceptionally solid debut thriller, Peter Scattergood, a promising young Philadelphia assistant DA, is handed the case of his career--the double murder of the mayor's nephew and the nephew's girlfriend--just as his marriage falls apart. Left with mounting bills when his wife moves out, an overwhelming workload and a mother ill with cancer, Scattergood, descendant of Quaker patricians, finds his morals and ethics severely tested. Though he wants to save his marriage, he becomes involved with sex-hungry bank vice-president Cassandra; his closest ally in the DA's office is succumbing to a cocaine addiction; their boss tries to speed Scattergood's murder prosecution; and the facts of the case grow increasingly contradictory, suggesting implication of the mayor. Harrison knows the details of criminal prosecution and the Philadelphia ambience, and the dual threads of his plot--crumbling marriage, crumbling career--are ingeniously complementary. Although Harrison's occasionally overwrought prose can take on a dizzying, almost hallucinogenic effect, he really knows how to spin a tale, and his novel is intelligent, absorbing and satisfying.
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