Intruder

When his family is harassed by a psychotic vagrant, prominent Manhattan attorney Jacob Schiff is forced to take matters into his own hands to protect them. Reprint. AB. NYT. PW.

Peter Blauner's dark thriller The Intruder centers on John Gates, a homeless man in Manhattan who has come to believe that a lawyer named Jake Schiff has stolen his family and ruined his life. When Schiff takes up extreme measures to put an end to Gates' harassment, the world is turned upside down for both men. Blauner's characterizations are taut and he excels at creating short, edgy scenes that fray at the nerves as this morality play careens toward its inevitable conclusion.