Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: "The Intruder" was the one of best books I have read. I never use to like reading, I though watching a movie was better then reading a book. But one day I went to Library and saw "The Intruder", I had this good feeling about this book. So I took it home, and started reading it. Immediatly started liking it, I couldn't stop reading it. I use to read 50 pages of it a day. It had everything I looked for in a good movie except this a book. Anyone looking for action, suspense, violence, should get this book.
Rating: 
Summary: moral ambiguity
Review: compelling storyline, fluid prose and deftly depicted contemporary nyc setting.homelessness and pride in nest-building come crashing together in a hauntingly plausible way in this end of century glimpse at urban america.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephen King was paid off
Review: First, the write-up on the back cover of this book is definitely more exciting than the actual story. I felt like I had been deceived after reading this snore-inducer. This book is not about a "malevolent stranger" terrorizing a family - it is about a cardboard-character Mafioso terrorizing a family (and doing it slooooooooowly). This is nothing but a very blaw tale - flat characters, boring plot, stereotypical bad-guys. It wasn't completely awful, but there was nothing new or exciting to the whole book. Avoid at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: I have read only two of the author's other books, but by now it's obvious that this is not another standard mass market thriller writer. Mr. Blauner's books have real character and individual texture. It's true that The Intruder is the most straight-forward and exciting of the novels of his that I've read, but the people in it are far more shaded, nuanced, and real than they are in most genre fiction. Readers who think they are cliches just aren't reading carefully enough or better yet should stick to Grisham novels. I read this book two years ago and still it haunts me.
Rating:
Summary: STREET JUSTICE
Review: In this rather downer of a novel, Peter Blauner etches realistic and scathing portraits of a diverse cast: Jake Schiff, a power house lawyer who finds his life turned upside down by the invasion of a "street Person" with severe emotional problems; his wife, Dana, a psychiatric social worker whose involvement with this same person catapults her family into a vortex of danger; John Gates, the street person whose tragic past and dependence on drugs, spirals him into a maze of terror; Philip, a sly mafia man who insinuates himself into Jake's life and through a murder sets a path of irretrievable terror.
Blauner has a deft touch in creating seemingly hopeless situations, and though he redeems himself with characters finally doing something right, it ends on a rather dim vision of the future of our characters.
Well done but disheartening.
Rating:
Summary: STREET JUSTICE
Review: In this rather downer of a novel, Peter Blauner etches realistic and scathing portraits of a diverse cast: Jake Schiff, a power house lawyer who finds his life turned upside down by the invasion of a "street Person" with severe emotional problems; his wife, Dana, a psychiatric social worker whose involvement with this same person catapults her family into a vortex of danger; John Gates, the street person whose tragic past and dependence on drugs, spirals him into a maze of terror; Philip, a sly mafia man who insinuates himself into Jake's life and through a murder sets a path of irretrievable terror.
Blauner has a deft touch in creating seemingly hopeless situations, and though he redeems himself with characters finally doing something right, it ends on a rather dim vision of the future of our characters.
Well done but disheartening.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: The best things about this book are how, despite its simplicity of circumstance, its main characters are richly three-dimensional and movingly shaded: John G., the raving homeless man who sets the plot in motion through his therapeutic obsession with Jakes' wife Dana is an extremely empathetic recovering heroin addict whose own family has been torn apart by violence - there has not been an urban homeless character more engaging since the titular fellow of 1993's Free by Todd Komarnicki (Doubleday); Phil is a Brooklyn tough who poorly harbors a guilt-inducing secret; and the book's greatest character, New York City itself, is drawn with a deft versimilitude, full of subtly etched class, race and sex distinctions.The latter is no surprise coming from Blauner, whose finely textured and harrowing 1992 debut, Slow Motion Riot won that year's Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best First Novel. Blauner's books are as much about sociological observation as about thrills-and-chills. His keen journalist's eye and psychological insight make for terrifically pungent prose. Tricks of social perception amongst the characters make there be not one titular intruder in this book, but at least three as Jake, Phillip and John join in a dance that finds them accidentally and purposely stepping on each others' turf and toes.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of plot twists
Review: The title to this book is interesting and serves as a decent introduction to the story. Ostensibly, the Intruder in the story is the homeless man who fixates on Jake Schiff and determines, through his crack-induced haze, that Jake Schiff has somehow stolen his family and his home. But, as you read you notice that there are actually lots of intruders. Jake Schiff is a Jewish lawyer from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood who doesn't quite fit in with his WASP law firm and their snooty ways. His wife is a social worker who is an intruder in her work world because she cares more about the clients than the bureaucracy. There's a mobster named Phillip who is an intruder in his world because he's hiding his homosexual feelings in the very, very macho world of the mafia. He's also an intruder in Jake's world as he forces Jake to deal violently with the homeless madman who has laid siege to his life.
But, then again, maybe I'm reading symbolism in to places where it doesn't belong. What the heck, it's fun. This book is a good read and has enough plot twists to satisfy all but the most jaded of readers.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful...
Review: There is some originality in Blauner's subject matter. Blauners tale would have made an excellent low-grade, realistic,
daylight horror short story. Unfortunately the desire for sensationalistic hero gets the bad guy takes over and spoils the read. The book begins with the thoughtful and sometimes heartbreaking description of the downward spiral of a train conductor into homelessness, then crescendos into the thrilling tale of a couple being terrorized by this man who has begun to fixate on them. Just when you think this story is going somewhere, Blauner adds in a stereotyped Mafioso in the mix for some bizarre reason and this ultimately takes the story in a
completely uninteresting direction. Overall, I believe the first half book is worth reading. Once mafia guy enters the picture - feel safe in closing the book and calling it a day.
Rating:
Summary: Story revolves around only three characters
Review: This novel was just average and it took me forever to get excited about it. I finally started enjoying the last 100 pages. This novel has only three main characters and the plot is pretty straight forward. You have the lawyer and family being harassed by the Intruder and the handyman/mobster who comes to the aid of the lawyer. If you think you know the ending halfway through the book, you are probably right. If you like to read a lot of books, I recommend this one as a change of pace. I did buy Man of the Hour by the same author so I liked Intruder enough to read the same author. If you are choosy about your books, then skip this one.
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