The Art of Breaking Glass

The most deeply wounded soul in Bellevue's psychiatric ER is not a patient but a nurse, Sharon Blautner, reeling from the deaths of her husband and son in a car wreck 18 monthsago. In Hall's follow-up to Nightmare Logic, Sharon's self-hatred--she was the driver--is pulling her in dangerous directions by the time she meets Bill Kaiser. This darkly handsome man is in Bellevue for slitting his wrists and feigning self-castration after police confronted him during a break-in motivated by his passion to save some of New York's architectural treasures. Within days, Sharon has bonded with Bill, discovering that they both hate Manhattan developer Edward Mackinnon. Bill's loathing arises from Mackinnon's greedy participation in the destruction of majestic buildings; Sharon's from the fact that the developer once cheated her father, plunging him toward suicide. Sharon breaks a small hospital rule, resulting in Bill's spectacular escape and the loss of her job, kicking off a reign of terror in which Bill strikes hard at anyone who has harmed Sharon. Conscripted to help the FBI catch Bill, Sharon learns that he is the last of an old New York family whose ancestors include President McKinley's assassin and a noted gangster. By the end, Bill and Sharon's roles have become equally charged as they walk their separate razors' edges. Readers partial to New York's underground will revel in Bill's remarkable subterranean life, while architecture aficionados will sympathize with his reasons for committing havoc. Hall writes ruminatively in the early chapters to pave the way for the full-throttled mayhem that follows, but readers will be nailed from start to finish. 200,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; paperback rights to Warner; simultaneous Time Warner audio. (May)