After reading the New York Times Book Review about this short novel, I was glad to have read it. I liked how Harrison captured New York City and the unravelling of a sad, but realistic story of a middle-level Wall Street executives life after he is accidentally flattened by a garbage truck. There is real drama lurking in the side plots. Highly recommended. ( )

'Risk' is a short novel by Colin Harrison about a New York insurance lawyer who's taken outside his comfort zone to investigate the last moments of a person involved in a fatal accident outside a bar. George Young, our hero, is drawn into the action at the request of the victim's mother, the widow of the law firm's founder, who also happens to have hired Mr. Young long ago. He feels he has a debt to re-pay, so he takes it on. For a while it seemed like it was a poor decision to take the case, but it turned into a fine one at the end.

Risk was originally published as a series of articles in a magazine, but it doesn't seem disjointed as a result. There's not much character development involved, but Harrison's writing is top notch and the dialogue and interactions between characters are realistic. The plot, though, is pretty narrow so the whole thing seems like a very long short story. That's not a criticism, just an observation. It moves quickly, which is usually a good thing.

What I liked the best about Risk was the roster of 'odd' characters (a Czech hand model, for example) that quickly entered and left the story. Unfortunately, probably because of the way the novel was originally published, there wasn't much development done so their contribution to the story was episodic at best.

Risk is worth a read, if for nothing else than to appreciate Harrison's writing. ( )

Got this as a freebie from Picador.

Another reviewer described this book as "modern noir." Wish I had thought of that. George Young works for a law firm with one client, a large European insurance company. The firm's role is to investigate suspected fraudulent claims. The founder's widow asks George, who has a reputation for tenacity, to look into the death of her son, a man killed in an accident. There was no question it was an accident, the man had been drinking for hours before before he inadvertently stepped in front of a garbage truck. She wants to know why he had been imbibing for so long, behavior totally uncharacteristic.

At first glance, Roger Corbett appears to be the normal, middling level, investment banker, whose career began optimistically, but then moved from one job to another as vapor-ware financial instruments and desire for instant riches began his downward spiral. Divorced, struggling to hold things together, Roger meets a Czech hand model (did I mention ordinary?) who has been bringing little Christmas figurines into the country.

Young begins asking questions, discouraged initially by the ex-cop detective Roger's mother had originally hired to investigate. He soon finds himself learning a lot about rhodium, a precious metal worth $9,000 per ounce.

Harrison writes well. It's a good novella, reminiscent of the better Block and McBain, and I discovered it was difficult to put down despite the lack of murder, sex or violence. It's to Harrison's credit that he can build such a fascinating story from a combination of otherwise ordinary people living ordinary lives who find themselves caught up in extraordinary situations.

My congratulations to Picador the publishers of this short novel for the binding, a combination dust jacket, trade paperback, and nice design. It's light and will stand up under use. Makes a lot more sense than hardcover as we know it. Love to see more like this. It seems to me, if my memory serves me correctly, this kind of binding was relatively common in Europe years ago. Of course, ebook format works even better.

I've ordered several other titles by Harrison. ( )

An enjoyable light mystery novel. It's the first Colin Harrison book that I actually managed to finish reading! ( )

This book begins as a great little noirish story, short (174 pages), and develops into a mystery with a really cool character study in the mix. It is written in first person, which adds to the mood, almost as if you are sitting by a fire on a rainy night, listening to your favorite uncle tell you a tale. I discovered from reading the acknowledgments that the book was originally commissioned as a fifteen part serial for the New York Times Magazine. Oddly enough, however, there are only twelve chapters, each one with a name. I like that. In fact, I liked just about everything in this book. Even its length, which, under normal circumstances would have been way too short for me. For this book, it works. Anything more would have diluted the excellent flow of the story.

The main character, George, is a married, middle aged attorney for a high risk insurance fraud investigations firm. George and his wife live in and own a nice apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. They have a daughter in college. George is good at his job, and life proceeds in an orderly, evenly paced fashion until one day he is summoned to the Park Avenue apartment of the wife of his now deceased mentor. George is asked to look into the actions of the son of his mentor, who was recently killed in a freak pedestrian/truck accident late one night in lower Manhattan. And so the tale begins.

The story is evenly paced and very New York. There are sprinklings of the Yankees, the Verrazano Narrows bridge, Brooklyn, old maps, a hand model, and other quirky elements that add just enough spice to this very well written short novel. The surprise ending fooled me, but I tend to get lazy with a great read like this one. My questioning mind shuts down and I let myself be carried along by the story, which is exactly what happened while reading Risk. This book won‘t take longer than an evening to finish, but it is a very satisfying read. Highly recommended.. ( )