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The Art of Breaking Glass: A Thriller
When psychiatric nurse Sharon Blautner inadvertently helps patient Bill Kaiser escape from New York's Bellevue Hospital, she is torn between stopping him and allowing the modern day Robin Hood to continue his twisted efforts on behalf of the city's powerless. 200,000 first printing. $300,000 ad/promo.
324 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
11 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Hall
106 books11 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
For the author of the Jenny Cooper series please check Matthew Hall's or M.R. Hall's profile
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
For the author of the Jenny Cooper series please check Matthew Hall's or M.R. Hall's profile
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
August 28, 2015
Exciting suspense/thriller. Just exactly who is the bad guy in this? Well, we know but Hall blurs the boundaries to make us wonder. I like the heroine caught up in the mess and I long to know if there is a follow up book. Why do I want the villain and heroine to get together??
April 23, 2019
Eh, this was an alright 'thriller.' In my opinion, The Art of Breaking Glass seems like it wants to be a novel like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the plot isn't quite there. There are sections of the story that are absolutely insane page-turners, but a good portion of the novel is predictable and lackluster. I also found the lead character, Sharon, to be hard to like (or even tolerate) towards the end of the book.
October 16, 2025
I can’t say exactly when I read this the first time, but it must have been sometime close to the 1997 date of publication. I clearly remember liking it and recommending it to anyone who would listen, but I could only vaguely recall the main beats and almost none of the details. I eventually picked up a copy of my own, always intending to read it again, but never getting around to it. Now, after so much time has passed, I was equal parts eager to reengage with the story and curious to see if it held up, the latter because I feel like I’ve grown a little more discerning over the ensuing years.
One of the things that worked for me then and now was the originality of Bill Kaiser, one of the two central characters. Calling him a ‘central character’ is a hedge, as he lands somewhere between protagonist and antagonist, and you know right off the bat that there’s more to him than meets the eye. He’s in a NY high-rise, competently working his way through some sophisticated breaking and entering, when he ends up arrested for trespassing on private property, fully naked and bloody, with self-inflicted wounds and threatening further self-harm.
Instead of jail, he’s taken to Bellevue, where he presents as a full-blown schizophrenic. This is where we meet Sharon Blautner, an ER nurse with some heavy personal baggage who happens to catch Bill’s intake, and who is tasked with helping to assess his mental state and his readiness to face charges. Sharon has no doubt that Bill has some measure of mental illness, but also sees that he can be thoughtful, reasonable, and caring. Unfortunately for her, the aforementioned baggage has left Sharon’s bad-dude-meter hopelessly offline, which Bill quickly exploits. Their encounter knocks her world off its axis, and Sharon is left unable to escape Bill’s orbit even when she wants to.
I really enjoyed the author’s approach. Even though this book had the DNA of a conventional thriller, there was some investigating and a pursuit, the narrative wasn’t driven by a cop or a cop-surrogate, which was refreshing. All of the main characters were shaded, and not strictly black and white. My only complaints were that Sharon’s actions in the back-half of the book were occasionally irrational, while Bill was so über-capable it defied belief. His back-up plans had back-up plans, which had more had back-up plans, which made it seem that he could manage the most intricate and elaborate of machinations without a hiccup. Three and a half stars, rounded up for not having been a total disappointment upon re-reading.
As a postscript, I always wondered what ever happened to Matthew Hall after this was published, assuming that was not a pseudonym. There are multiple works published by authors bearing this name, but unless he jumped genres (and continents), this appears to have been the last published work by this Matthew Hall.
One of the things that worked for me then and now was the originality of Bill Kaiser, one of the two central characters. Calling him a ‘central character’ is a hedge, as he lands somewhere between protagonist and antagonist, and you know right off the bat that there’s more to him than meets the eye. He’s in a NY high-rise, competently working his way through some sophisticated breaking and entering, when he ends up arrested for trespassing on private property, fully naked and bloody, with self-inflicted wounds and threatening further self-harm.
Instead of jail, he’s taken to Bellevue, where he presents as a full-blown schizophrenic. This is where we meet Sharon Blautner, an ER nurse with some heavy personal baggage who happens to catch Bill’s intake, and who is tasked with helping to assess his mental state and his readiness to face charges. Sharon has no doubt that Bill has some measure of mental illness, but also sees that he can be thoughtful, reasonable, and caring. Unfortunately for her, the aforementioned baggage has left Sharon’s bad-dude-meter hopelessly offline, which Bill quickly exploits. Their encounter knocks her world off its axis, and Sharon is left unable to escape Bill’s orbit even when she wants to.
I really enjoyed the author’s approach. Even though this book had the DNA of a conventional thriller, there was some investigating and a pursuit, the narrative wasn’t driven by a cop or a cop-surrogate, which was refreshing. All of the main characters were shaded, and not strictly black and white. My only complaints were that Sharon’s actions in the back-half of the book were occasionally irrational, while Bill was so über-capable it defied belief. His back-up plans had back-up plans, which had more had back-up plans, which made it seem that he could manage the most intricate and elaborate of machinations without a hiccup. Three and a half stars, rounded up for not having been a total disappointment upon re-reading.
As a postscript, I always wondered what ever happened to Matthew Hall after this was published, assuming that was not a pseudonym. There are multiple works published by authors bearing this name, but unless he jumped genres (and continents), this appears to have been the last published work by this Matthew Hall.
May 16, 2018
This is one of the best and most original thrillers I’ve read in some time. Some of the reviews when it was published (in 1997) compared it to Silence of the Lambs, which is entirely misleading. The two main characters around whom the story revolves are Bill Kaiser, who may or may not be insane, depending on your criteria and your politics, and Sharon Blautner, a psychiatric ER nurse at Bellevue, who has survived too many tragedies and whose mental stability is also problematic. We meet Bill as he’s breaking into the apartment of a U.S. Senator who’s in the pocket of Edward Mackinnon, a multi-millionaire property developer who intends to tear down a Lower East Side architectural landmark and replace it with a for-profit prison. (He’s planning to follow that with more prisons in all the boroughs, and then the rest of the country awaits.) Bill plants a plastique bomb in the senator’s computer, but then the cops show up and he gives them a performance to ensure they take him to the psychiatric prison ward at Bellevue. Enter Sharon, a talented almost-shrink whose father committed suicide and who then lost her husband and toddler son in a traffic accident, and now is just barely hanging on. She’s terrific with the patients, though, and she loves her job, and that keeps her sane. And now there’s this new guy who seems much more intelligent than most. Could he be faking his symptoms to stay out of jail?
As you can guess, that’s just the beginning. Events will attach Bill and Sharon closely to each other. Bill has a political agenda and the technical talents and skills to carry it out. Sharon wants to protect both him and the people he has targeted -- except that she has no reason to want to save Mackinnon, who once was her father’s partner. Bill has deep ties to the structure of New York and knows the city very well. And even though he makes some very questionable decisions, he’s a sympathetic character. But it’s Sharon the reader roots for as she tries to save both Bill and Mackinnon from themselves. (Even though it’s unlikely she would turn out to be a more proficient investigator than the FBI, as happens several times.)
I picked up this book used, and it’s physically a bit odd, having been published apparently without a jacket and displaying absolutely no author information. I can find no indication of any other books Hall may have written, either. (There are a lot of “Matthew Halls” out there.) Was this a one-off? I hope not. While it’s just a bit overwritten in places, and while the political points the author wants to make tend to be pushed in the reader’s face, the overall result is a very exciting, very cinematic yarn.
As you can guess, that’s just the beginning. Events will attach Bill and Sharon closely to each other. Bill has a political agenda and the technical talents and skills to carry it out. Sharon wants to protect both him and the people he has targeted -- except that she has no reason to want to save Mackinnon, who once was her father’s partner. Bill has deep ties to the structure of New York and knows the city very well. And even though he makes some very questionable decisions, he’s a sympathetic character. But it’s Sharon the reader roots for as she tries to save both Bill and Mackinnon from themselves. (Even though it’s unlikely she would turn out to be a more proficient investigator than the FBI, as happens several times.)
I picked up this book used, and it’s physically a bit odd, having been published apparently without a jacket and displaying absolutely no author information. I can find no indication of any other books Hall may have written, either. (There are a lot of “Matthew Halls” out there.) Was this a one-off? I hope not. While it’s just a bit overwritten in places, and while the political points the author wants to make tend to be pushed in the reader’s face, the overall result is a very exciting, very cinematic yarn.
November 3, 2012
Bill Kaiser is a man motivated by social justice. He has a unique set of skills from computer knowledge to chemistry and explosives.
He has a particular love for the historic Carnegie-Hayden building in New York. This was one of his favorite places growing up and a place his mother said was meant for the people. However, now there's a chance it will be turned into one of the first 'for profit' prisons.
Bill is caught when he's breaking into an exclusive building. When police find him, he's naked and has cut himself in numerous places.
He's taken to Bellevue Hospital psych ward where he meets Sharon Blautner, a psych nurse assigned to evaluate him.
She works with him and sees good qualities but when he's removed to a police psych unit, she unwittingly helps him escape.
Edward Mackinnon is the corrupt exec who wants to change the building and others to 'for profit' prisons. He earns Bill's resentment for this and the fact that he took advantage of Sharon's father when he was Edward's partner.
This is a finely crafted story with sympathetic characters, good pacing and excellent descriptions of New York and the building of the Carnegie-Hayden building.
He has a particular love for the historic Carnegie-Hayden building in New York. This was one of his favorite places growing up and a place his mother said was meant for the people. However, now there's a chance it will be turned into one of the first 'for profit' prisons.
Bill is caught when he's breaking into an exclusive building. When police find him, he's naked and has cut himself in numerous places.
He's taken to Bellevue Hospital psych ward where he meets Sharon Blautner, a psych nurse assigned to evaluate him.
She works with him and sees good qualities but when he's removed to a police psych unit, she unwittingly helps him escape.
Edward Mackinnon is the corrupt exec who wants to change the building and others to 'for profit' prisons. He earns Bill's resentment for this and the fact that he took advantage of Sharon's father when he was Edward's partner.
This is a finely crafted story with sympathetic characters, good pacing and excellent descriptions of New York and the building of the Carnegie-Hayden building.
June 22, 2007
One intense hero or villain . .you decide. A criminal with a socially progressive mindset? Interesting. He does some scary things. .the opening scene! But you are pulled in right away to see what he is really all about.
I finished this book with many questions . . .is this about despair? The heroine has understandable loss, the anti-hero? Hmmm.
And there is a tryst scene in KFMU's radio studio that involved a physical act I've been very curious about. . ??
I finished this book with many questions . . .is this about despair? The heroine has understandable loss, the anti-hero? Hmmm.
And there is a tryst scene in KFMU's radio studio that involved a physical act I've been very curious about. . ??
April 10, 2023
If you like politically driven, with antivillians, and full of depression, with a hint of spicy this is the book for you. However, it has a ton of different points of view that the author doesn't tell you you are now on. I had to focus on hard on who the point of view was on and sometimes it was several pages in the chapter. I struggled to try to finish this book because I got confused on the points of view. Surprisingly some of the themes in the book hold up to this day.
August 19, 2008
An all time favorite thriller about a psychotic genius.I recently read it for the second time.
January 17, 2025
I must say this book took me on a roller coaster - and not in the good way. It started off quite strong, and had all the makings of a prominent thriller but tapered off rather quickly. I’ll make a few notes. While at first I enjoyed the vivid and visceral imagery included in the text, at some point it became rather cumbersome and quite frankly - distracting. The inclusion of the minutia actually began to detract from many of the scenes, making it a slog to get through rather than a thrill to read. Secondly, (and this isn’t really central to the book) the author depicts his non-white characters in a rather strange way. The overemphasis on certain details, turns of speech, saying a character’s race or color every five sentences, etc etc made it odd to read. That’s a rather minor detail but I did find it strange. Lastly, I really disliked the ending. It was not satisfying at all. Then again, it’s hard to imagine what a satisfying ending to this book would be since it was a never ending goose chase for which it’s purpose was lost several times throughout the course of the novel. This took me a month to read, not because it’s long, but I became bored quite often. Not as “thrilling” as one would hope.
March 13, 2021
Predecible, recuerda mucho a leer una película de acción y suspenso. Descriptiva en exceso de escenas innecesarias y molestas. De todas formas mejora a medida que se avanza en la historia y llega a entretener. Pero es una película de hollywood hecha libro
August 24, 2021
I do not like to not finish a book but I had to suck it up and tell myself to stop wasting my time. I read about 40% and 4% was interesting. I just couldn’t get in to it. It’s not relatable and felt like too many words were just crammed in to paragraphs for effect. To add, I’m a psych nurse.
did-not-finish
March 5, 2022DNF at p. 102
This is not a terrible book but more a case of this not being the right type of book for me. It's a political thriller that reads like an action movie. I don't care much for politics and action movies are generally not my thing.
This is not a terrible book but more a case of this not being the right type of book for me. It's a political thriller that reads like an action movie. I don't care much for politics and action movies are generally not my thing.
July 13, 2022
Today we would declare bill Kaiser a modern Robin Hood. Reddit would have support groups for him. I’m a little surprised since this book is 25 years old to see so many issues we discuss today in it. But I guess it just shows that things haven’t really changed as much as we think they have.
April 29, 2018
read most of the book in one sitting but the first 1/4 of the book was slow and boring and then suddenly it picked up and wouldn't let me go
June 2, 2021
Read in 1997. Psychological thriller.
November 18, 2021
Read about 30%…. Nothing interesting. Maybe one spot where I was interested to continue but went back downhill. :/
February 1, 2022
hace aproximadamente 9 años
March 30, 2022
Actual listening experience was narrated by Jerry Orbach, produced by Time Warner Audiobooks.
January 25, 2023
I couldn't put it down at the end! One of those books you stay up until 1am to read!
February 1, 2023
I appreciate where this book started, and where it ended up, but I'm not sure I enjoyed the journey in between.
August 23, 2025
going to be honest I got a chapter in and didn't like the writing style and was already bored...
February 5, 2021
My husband read this book 23 years ago and he said he liked it so much he didn’t want to finish it so he didn’t. So I ordered it so I could read and he could finish the book. It was really good. It took about 100 pages to get into the action but after that it was very engaging and I couldn’t put the book down.
February 25, 2016
I started out liking Bill, but that didn't last long. He feels he can do anything for justice; it doesn't matter who he hurts or kills. He really likes Sharon, a nurse, but she ends up losing her job because of him. I don't think he would have had a problem killing a kidnapped child either. The plot does keep moving along though.
July 27, 2011
I read this when it first came out more than a decade ago and can still remember its completely unique heroine and hero/villain. Matthew Hall did a fantastic job of making you decide just which he was...and making you care deeply. This definitely deserves a place on my to be re-read pile.
September 26, 2014
Αστυνομικό γρήγορο με σασπένς περνάς καλά μαζί του χωρίς παραπάνω απαιτήσεις ,καλό για ΜΜΜ και παραλία. Η πόλη της Νέας Υόρκης και η αγάπη προς αυτή διατρέχει όλο το βιβλίο. Ωραίες εικόνες, θα γινόταν μια πολύ καλή ταινία ίσως καλύτερη και από το βιβλίο στα χέρια ενός καλού σκηνοθέτη.
April 27, 2008
Stupid , stupid , stupid
December 11, 2010
slightly above average thriller a tad too Silence of the Lambs but it does what it does very well
June 28, 2012
Brilliant thriller about a sociopath.
October 12, 2012
This book started out a little slow but got better toward the mid to end. This isn't my typical reading genre so the story was enjoyable but borderline of interest to me.
October 17, 2015
A genius psychotic criminal fighting for social justice. A very common storyline, just like watching a hollywood movie.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews