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Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Original.. with a twist.
Review: I must admit the thing that made me want to review this book most was Mr. Hall's rich mesmerising words and style. I mean - you read a lot of books, many that may have a more captivating storyline, but rarely do you come across a text whose every word is strong and powerful to the extent of keeping your eyes glued to the pages and your mind stimulated , alert and on edge. Yes, that's true. The book is a literary foray into psychological complexities of the human mind. It is interesting, yet somehow it loses its appeal towards the end. That does not go to say it is not a good book, but the title and the first part of it promise more than the latter part really delivers. Overall, it is a very good book and a great read - irrespective!
Rating:
Summary: Vigilantism at its best
Review: I think if Bill resembles any literary character it is Hamlet (or perhaps the less well known Stainless Steel Rat). He is dark and tormented, and he has issues with his mother. But what makes this book exceptional is Bill's committed (no pun intended) liberalism. He us a crazy man fighting the good fight. That, coupled with his undeniable brilliance, is what ultimately makes him so likeable. And you may finish the book, like I did, with an urge to engage in some creative social justice yourself. I've read this book three times, and I could read it again tomorrow. Buy it now, you won't be able to stop reading once you start. And, if you can afford it, buy the hardcover. The jacket and cover design are really snazzy.
Rating: 
Summary: Appealing
Review: Matthew Hall's second novel recalls-probably deliberately-"The Silence of the Lambs," and, like the Thomas Harris book, "The Art of Breaking Glass" should make it to the screen pretty much intact. This one has two star-making roles: There's Bill Kaiser, a mad genius out to wreak justice on the world-or at least Manhattan-by using unconventional, violent, high-tech methods. He's perversely fun to watch, quite like "Silence"'s Hannibal Lecter. "`I repair things, keep them even," he says. "I connect the circuits that otherwise don't get connected. I keep the balance. That's my work.'" Then, in the Clarice Starling role, there's Sharon Blautner, a nurse who meets Kaiser in the Psych ER at Bellevue. An unwilling accomplice, she loses her job when Kaiser escapes and ends up in the middle of the vigilante's well-orchestrated crusade. His goal: to stop a campaign to tear down a mostly abandoned community center in lower Manhattan and erect a for-profit jail. The main target is the corporate mogul putting the company's plan into effect-a man who, coincidentally, who drove Sharon's father, a onetime business partner, to suicide-and Sharon finds herself torn between what's right and what's just, as the book heads toward a cataclysmic conclusion.Hall's writing rarely gets in the way of his steam-train storyline-though he occasionally indulges a tendency to preach about the broader societal issues involved in Kaiser's mission-and he drops in some lovely phrases and passages (a band's music is "like hearing electricity breathe"). Bill is deadly serious but maintains a healthy sense of irony, which lightens the story's mayhem and vengeance; you can only hope that when "The Art of Breaking Glass" makes it to a theater near you, the film entertains as much as the book.
Rating:
Summary: Very awsome!
Review: This was one of the first "real" books that I read. It is a little bit confusing at first, because there are so many characters, but after the first couple of chapters you won't want to put it down! I hope that if you are doubting about buying this book, STOP! This is an awsome book I recommend it to anyone that likes to read! I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!
Rating:
Summary: Very awsome!
Review: This was one of the first "real" books that I read. It is a little bit confusing at first, because there are so many characters, but after the first couple of chapters you won't want to put it down! I hope that if you are doubting about buying this book, STOP! This is an awsome book I recommend it to anyone that likes to read! I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!
Rating:
Summary: Great book, Thrilling ,edge of seat.can't put down!!!!
Review: Urban terrorist fights against urban renewal. Based on the above premise I thought that I had made a mistake in buying this book. Was I wrong! This book roars along at high speed, with unexpected plot twists. I look forward to Mr. Hall's next one.
Rating:
Summary: As beautifully crafted as it is gripping...
Review: When I got this book, I immediately read it twice. Once, within 48 hours, because the suspense was killing me. A second time to relish the writing and characterization. I don't make it through most mysteries even once -- after I've unraveled the plot, the writing often isn't good enough to hold my interest . How rare to find a mystery like this which can tether one to the plot with a strong thread of suspense, yet pleasure one with the deliberate nature and freshness of the writing. What I enjoyed most about the book was the moral complexity of the characters. Too many books have the clearly evil and the clearly good. In my experience we all have a few blemishes to our souls, a few dings in our characters, and an inconsistency or two in our ethics. This book steps out of a world where characters are as flat and two-dimensional as a soap opera heroine, and into a world where people are as intriguing, mystifying, and unpredictable as they really are in life. Here are people who walk hand-in-hand not just with the companions of their days but with the ghosts and demons of their own pasts and with the shadow side of their own natures. We are introduced to Bill, a Robin Hood of sorts, an activist for the rich history and community and thriving life of the urban landscape -- at the same time in which he is psychotic killer, an evil genius, inflicting his peculiar notions of justice on people and property as well. In Bill's case, he has an almost terrifying consistency in his ethics. (I can't tell you to how many people I've read the violence-against-women vengeance sequence in the book, and how many of them copped to having similar fantasies.) Sharon, our heroine, is torn between her own ethics, and those she shares with Bill. She is more effective at solving puzzles than most of the detectives she encounters -- even as she clings to her own mental equilibrium with an at times very tentative hold. Sharon -- along with a third character, Eric -- are engaging as decent people trying to deal compassionately and appropriately with an insane world. It was delightful to find a mystery in which the ethical questions and the characters were as gripping as the plot.
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