- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate; First U.K edition (2 Sep 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1857025199
- ISBN-13: 978-1857025194
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,385,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Better than Grisham, better than Patricia Cornwell. I loved it’
James Patterson
Product Description
A contender for the Grisham/Turow market; an ‘urban Cape Fear’ in which an ambitious New York lawyer, just as he is reaching the peak of his career, finds everything he has worked so hard to achieve is threatened by the arrival in his life of The Intruder, a psychotic homeless bum.
Jake Schiff is a prominent Manhattan lawyer. He can’t go around whacking people just because he has a problem with them, but when John Gault enters his life he finds himself asking someone to do just that. John G is a subway driver who has cracked up and quit his job when too many people threw themselves in front of his train. He soon becomes a psychotic homeless drug addicted bum who begins to stalk Jake’s wife Dana, a hospital psychiatric worker assigned to John G’s case. When John G threatens Jake and Dana’s teenage son with a knife, Jake snaps and allows Phil, a crazed Italian-American gangster from his old neighbourhood, to go after John G with a baseball bat. A man is killed and suddenly Jake’s glittering career and all he has worked so hard to achieve is in ruins when he is arrested for murder.
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First Sentence
At first, there's only darkness. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
At first, there's only darkness. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
I would recommend the seller , my books arrived promptly and in fantastic condition as described , i would purchase from Rivendell again without hesitation.
Format:Paperback
`The Intruder' is a crime thriller that treads a thin line between tension and absurdity. Jake Schiff is a lawyer whose family is being harassed by a homeless man names John Q. Jake has called the police, but they seem powerless to stop the harassment so he calls in the help of some less desirable people. What happens next will change both Jake and John's lives. Author Peter Blauner at times creates a book that is truly gripping. The first third is excellent as the tension rises as John Q gets worse and Jake becomes increasingly impotent. The start of the book works because both of the characters are well developed with the `bad guy' getting as much development as the lawyer. You understand that John Q is not a bad man, but someone whose life has gone out of control.
Despite the good start Blauner decides to change the tone and pace of the book. All of a sudden Jake is making uncharacteristic decisions that I would expect from the most stupid of soap characters. As a reader I got increasingly frustrated with the stupidity of all the characters from the lawyer, to the tramp, to the police. If it was not for a thrilling finale the book would have completely gone of the boil and into the world of the insane. However, despite the decent final set piece we don't actually learn anything about how the characters faired; a frustrating set of events when you have invested so much time. Blauner has managed to write a book that starts of very promising, but descends into farce, not even the ending can rescue it from the below average doldrums.
Despite the good start Blauner decides to change the tone and pace of the book. All of a sudden Jake is making uncharacteristic decisions that I would expect from the most stupid of soap characters. As a reader I got increasingly frustrated with the stupidity of all the characters from the lawyer, to the tramp, to the police. If it was not for a thrilling finale the book would have completely gone of the boil and into the world of the insane. However, despite the decent final set piece we don't actually learn anything about how the characters faired; a frustrating set of events when you have invested so much time. Blauner has managed to write a book that starts of very promising, but descends into farce, not even the ending can rescue it from the below average doldrums.
Format:Paperback
Blauner does a marvellous job here in building up the suspense around a conflict between an increasingly unbalanced street tramp and a New York City lawyer. I particularly liked the rapid fall from grace of the tramp - from employment to sleeping rough in three easy moves, don't pass go! The menace of the streets and the lawyer reading most things wrong are the book's strongest points, and I would certainly have given 5 crowns if it wasn't for the (by now, from so many other thrillers) somewhat telegraphed showdown ending. But, overall, great psychological character studies and tension.
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