Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down
Review: I usually have no problem putting books down but this one kept me reading when I had a lot of other things I should have been doing. Not great literature but very entertaining with believable dialogue.
Rating: 
Summary: Ick
Review: I'd give this book no stars if I could. I liked nothing about it -- all of the characters are unpleasant and poorly drawn. They don't act like real people or speak like real people, and the things that happen to them aren't things that would happen in real life. The "style" is off-putting as well. I mean, should you really notice that a book has a "style" when you're reading it? Usually, I don't like to speculate on the marketablity of a book (I like to think that writers aren't writing merely for market) but in this case that's the only way to put anything positive in this review. I imagine this book might appeal to a small segment of middle-aged male readers, but it's not bright, brave or new enough to appeal to younger, savvier readers and it's got nothing in it at all that would appeal to women.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but not totally successful novel
Review: If you look at the reviews for this book, you will conclude that it must either be a masterpiece or a waste of paper. It is neither. Harrison has a lot of interesting ideas but does not, in my opinion, totally pull them off. The book is narrated by Bill Wyeth, whose rapid descent from a successful New York real estate lawyer to near bum is covered if the first chapter. Through a terrible mistake, for which he is not responsible, a child dies, and his powerful father uses his power to ruin Wyeth. In quick succession, he loses his job, his wife, and access to his son. When he has reached the bottom, he wanders into a steak restaurant that seems to be an island of sanity in a world that has turned on him. He develops a crush on the woman who runs the restaurant, Allison Sparks. There is a mysterious room which is invitation-only that fascinates him but to which he cannot gain access. Then one night he is asked by Allison to help her boyfriend, Jay Rainey, close a real estate deal. He does, reluctantly, and as a result, (1) finds himself doing things that, while not clearly criminal, could be and (2) starts being threatened by a series of thugs for reasons he cannot understand. All of this leads him to uncover Jay Rainey's secrets as a way of saving himself. The obvious influence on this book is the Great Gatsby. Rainey shares a first name (Jay) with Gatsby, an obsession with trying to reclaim the past, and a possibly criminal background. Indeed, Wyeth comes on a list of activities made by Rainey of what to do each day that is almost identical to a list made by Gatsby, although for different purposes. Of course, nothing is what it seems a first or even second glance. By the end of the book, Harrison is tying up numerous plots, including Rainey's past and future, and the mysterious Havana Room. I found the resolution somewhat forced. Additionally, I often figured out what was happening well before the narrator, which is annoying. The secret of what goes on in the Havana Room was a let-down. And the ending was a little too hopeful for what had gone before. Nevertheless, this book is not a waste. Harrison is trying to write more than a run of the mill thriller. The use of the Gatsby theme is effective, and the ultimate secrets about Rainey's past are moving. Violence plays a part in the book, but it seemed realistic in that it was not carefully thought out but almost accidental. While the book is not perfectly plotted, it offers the reader interesting characters who, like Gatsby, are pulled back into the past.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing, compelling read
Review: Is there a better novelist crafting well-written, utterly engaging stories about Manhattan than Colin Harrison? I doubt it. He locks you in from page one, dazzles you with superb writing, and fills the pages with daring plot twists. This is a story about a lawyer, who after an accidental mishap, loses his wife, child, career and dignity until he happens to stumble into a midtown steakhouse with a mysterious private room called...you guessed it. This is really a book about losing a child (either through death or divorce), but we're clearly not in Oprah-ville. Some things strain credibility (like how does an unemployed lawyer down on his luck afford lunch and dinner EVERY DAY in a steakhouse?) and the plot gets a little too tricky at times, but it's easy to ignore these faults because of Harrison's huge writing talent which breathes life into his characters and Manhattan. I, for one, couldn't put it down. I wish he would write faster...I can't wait for his next book.
Rating:
Summary: Dull
Review: Not exactly what I would call a thriller and certainly not erotic (prudish actually), The Havana Room is ok if you want to read about an overweight, white, real estate lawyer (a wannabe “master of the universeâ€) who faces a major crisis and is forced to slum around with the normal people for a couple of months before regaining all that he has lost. Oh, and there’s narcotic sushi too.
Racist and sexist, this poorly written novel ultimately reifies white, male, upper-class privilege. The fact that the New York Times favorably reviewed this Grisham-esque pseudo-noir TWICE is the biggest mystery.
Rating:
Summary: As Tap saith, Sh2379234@ Sandwich
Review: Oh, My! What have we here? 1. Woman in pumps with sexual appetite that'd make Jenna Jameson seem a nun; 2: Rich yuppie who, through no fault of his own, had lost "everything" 3: Oddball Mephisto with some scheme to blah blah 4. Mindnumbing discursi on points of intetest to no one outside the author's wife (NYC real estate, from the ice age onward, anyone?), and, it's a Colin Harrison corpo-thriller! Honestly, you want good crime fiction? JAMES ELLROY. Good thrillers? The GREAT and unknown, for some reason I can't figure out other than he's too morally honest for the creeps that buy dreck like Harrison's and twaddlers like The DaVinci Code, ALAN FURST. Harrison is published because he was a biggie at that schlock liberal rag whose name I can't recall, now at Scribners, which everyone knows is the home of TOP NoTCH LIT (drr), where Dostoevsky, no doubt, would take his mss. of The Devils were he a starvin' artist. I forced myself to finish this book in one night and will forever regret the experience. There are bad, overrated writers, then there are writers like Colin Harrison, who don't even have the courage to admit they are writing schlock, who pretend their garbage is "genre-busting" when it's just the same Turow/Grisham garbagio with the difference T and G don't pretend to be pumping out great lit like silly Colin; then there are the pendants, toadies, and idiots who think they are increasing their own meager publication chances by raving about this dreck. Dante made a special place in hell for you, bud. Not going to tell you which, because I want you to suffer in finding it. Folks, trust me. Wait for this one to go on remainder or buy it used from wherever. It's that damned bad. Use the money you'd have spend otherwise on someting by Alan Furst, or, for Gods sake, a fifth of whiskey and something by Zeppelin. I don't mind schlock -- just so schlock doesn't pretend to be something it ain't, like real literature. The latter being Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Balzac, and many other dead European white men.
Rating:
Summary: Fish Story
Review: Possible spoiler alert. In the opening chapter of "Havana Room," Bill Wyeth, well-heeled New York lawyer and dependable family man, accidentally kills the child of a powerful acquaintance, and is in short order stripped of his wife, son, home, career, friends, and dignity. Wyeth's remaining solace after this disgrace is a regular table at the Havana Room, a steakhouse frequented by mysterious, monied characters whose extra-legal activities, Wyeth comes to realize, offer him a path to redemption. The beginning of "Havana Room," which efficiently charts Wyeth's downward trajectory, is good. What follows is less so: a ham-fisted noir plot (involving the exciting world of Long Island real estate, no less!), infected by Harrison's maudlin attempts to draw parallels between the love of the principal characters for their children, and some arcana about exotic pescetarian delicacies. "Havana Room" is the sort of frustrating mystery that derives its suspense from the stupidity of its narrator: momentum is achieved through our idiot protagonist's chance discoveries of "secrets" that the other characters have long since known. This tactic might have serviced a shorter book, but Harrison's game of hide-the-ball grows tiresome over 385 pages. The solution to the mystery produces no payoff, as the secrets Wyeth blunders across must remain secret, and the bad men do not get their comeuppance because -- surprise! -- unlimately, there are no bad men in this story. "Havana Room" succeeds in one respect: it's wish fulfillment for downsized, divorced, middle-aged men. For the rest of us, this tale is too hard to swallow. Throw it back.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 1/2 stars
Review: See book summary above. This will not rank as one of my favorite Harrison novels. As one reviewer notes its more a literary thriller. Plenty of prose here. Once you develop compassion for the protagonist it gets a little better, but overall I still think its a little over-written, though at the same time well-written (this might only make sense to me). Not something I'd read over again.
Rating:
Summary: to anyone who gave reviews under 3 stars
Review: tell you what, you are simply not on the level of how to appreaciate a good novel by a far too good writer.
colin harrison is one of the rarely found next generation william faulkner + ernest hemingway + james joyce + feodor dostoevsky + albert camus in a far better readable form. if you failed to grasp the beautiful writing and the way of thinking how he wrote every one of his books, you're just not at the threshhold to read them yet. so, i'd prefer and suggest you to at least read some of the works of the above-mentioned writers, then to read colin harrison's modern day dramas. but if you failed to appreciate or enjoy none of them, then, i strongly suggest you not to read colin harrison at all, and please save some time not writing up book reports to make me laugh and sigh at the same time.
tell you what: this his new novel is simply too fantastic! i enjoyed every word he put into writing and printing, and was simply amazed how he did it again. there are so many subtle and ingenious writing techniques to be learned in each of harrison's novels. how to develope a story, just like he said in this latest book: to bury a truth in a lie, or a lie in a truth. this is so far one of the most fasinating stories i've ever read. this book is and should not be categorized as a certain genre, because it's everything included. all harrison's books are a matured man's journey of his life, the struggle of his dark half, a sudden failure, a downfall of mysterious overlooked or careless small mistake or wrong-doing that suddenly became the cause of the loss of his social position, his marriage, his possessions of everything, his take-for-granted normal life that an educated, mature and very smart middle aged person has achieved. the journey is always in the concrete jungle of new york, a modern odyssey, and that particular hero is a homer's ulysses in modern era, his sudden tumble caused his sudden banishment, his exile, his total loss, his self-destruction that not only affected himself but all the others around him. but on the other hand, harrison also never failed to give you hope, a ensured come-back, like the pheonix revivaled from the ashes. the life of his man is a lonely but die-hard hunter. that's the greatness of harrison's novel. forget about those elements of bloody cruelty, graphic violence and other minor stuff, these are but necessary evils to make a great novel more down-to-earth alive and they are also necessary for marketing. but readers should always focused and open his eyes to look at a large and deep forest instead of those single trees. if you could read harrison's books in this way, then you'd really appreciate what a great writer trying so hard and so faithfully to tell you. and believe me, everytime after you have finished one of his books, you'd understand yourself better and also become more tolerate of other people's failures and weaknesses, physically or morally. becasue you know so far you didn't fall like that guy is maybe, just maybe, purely by luck.
Rating:
Summary: Complex thriller
Review: The Havana Room by Colin Harrison is a good example of what might be called Fiction Noir. The main character is one Bill Wyeth, formerly a big shot lawyer who has just everything including his family. Depressed, Wyeth hangs out at a local steakhouse that features a bar-room called the "Havana Room." The strange and mysterious events that center around the Havana Room make for thrilling, suspenseful reading.
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