The little sticker on the cover of my library's copy of this audiobook says "mystery." Fair enough, there are only so many sticker categories. But Vachss rarely writes "mysteries" per se, and this is especially true given the radical shift of milieu and locale, away from dark urban evil and into ...
Unfortunately, the quality of The Weight by Vachss is just slightly lower than his previous (which was slightly lower than it's previous). Mister Vachss is on the down slide.Having read every book of his beginning in the late 1980's, I believe he (like many artists) lost his drive and anger and ...
I re-read Flood a few months back. Read some other stuff and then started on a Vachss/Burke fest. I have whipped through the next 5 books in this series in a few weeks. A real trip down memory lane for me. I first read Sacrifice int he early nineties. My abiding memory is of reading it whilst on ...
It has been a while since I have read a book in one day. This one I just couldn’t put down. Vachss created something like a textbook about child abuse and promoted Child Trauma Programs at the end of the book. I would say there is a blockbuster conclusion here. This is book #9 in the eighteen boo...
It often pays to follow your instincts. I was in a bookstore one day -- the day itself was nothing special -- when I spotted this book on a rack. I wasn't into any particular genre (I'm still not), and I'll never be able to tell you what one thing drew me to picking up BLUE BELLE. My instincts...
The eighth book of the Burke series Footsteps of the Hawk was published in 1995. I have had mixed reactions to the first seven books of the series with as many three stars as four. For me to continue reading a series I would like to have at least four stars as the norm.Vachss has an aggressive st...
"The first time I killed someone I was scared. Not scared to be doing it. I did it because I was scared. Shella told me it was like that for her the first time she had sex. I Was fifteen that first time. Shella was nine."Yeah that's the opening paragraph to this incredible piece of remorseless no...
I liked Vachss' "Two Trains Running," so I decided to give this other Burke novel a whirl. Unfortunately, the whirl turned into vertigo...That metaphor is typical of the narrator's speech. About halfway through this stale New York noir piece, I looked up the author online. Vachss, an attorney wh...
When his girlfriend, Crystal Beth, is gunned down at a gay rights rally in Central Park, Burke, the underground man-for-hire and expert hunter of predators, vows vengeance. But someone beats him to the task: a shadowy killer who calls himself Homo Erectus and who seems determined to wipe gay bas...
The book was okay. The chapters in this one were very short which for reasons unknown to me, I tend to be able to get through books like that quicker. What I really didn't like about the book was the fact that it was written in short choppy sentences. It could have used a lot more detail. I had a...
A hit man defies the confines of a life sentence to avenge his sister's batterer. An immaculately dressed man hires a street gang to extract his daughter from a Central American prison, for reasons as mysterious as they are deadly. A two-bit graffiti artist with a taste for Nazi-ganda finds him...
Burke's newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her—so she can kill him with her bare hands. In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss's renegade...
That's the way it is down here. If you can't be counted on, you can't be counted in.Former prosecutor Eva Wolfe is the ONLY woman who seems capable of resisting Burke's rather dubious charms. So, of course, SHE is the not-so-secret love of his life. It just seems to work out that way.Now, Burke's...
Burke is finally back in the city where he belongs, reunited with his "family," and now living in a sweet apartment designed by the Mole. (There are not only panels that flash if someone is sneaking up the stairs, but FREE CABLE as well! This guy thinks of everything!)Running low on cash, Burke...
I read most of these books back about 15-20 years ago, but there were a couple I missed. Honestly, it's a pretty neat "world" this guy has built, and I think the characters and so forth are intriguing. Basically, there's this guy "Burke," who is a thug with a pretty much nonexistent childhood, ...
From the bestselling master of modern noir comes this novel that pays tribute to the origins of the hardboiled genre. Eddie starts stealing cars long before he's old enough to get a license. But it is only after a stint in prison that he discovers his true calling--Eddie is the perfect getaway dr...
I am reading short stories for a while because I am having trouble keeping the details of long stories in my mind. Short attention span maybe. Closed head injury maybe. I have recently finished reading the Burke series by Vachss and had some problem with the level of complexity as the series conc...
The voice on the cell phone was trying to come across as bored with the whole thing, but I could pick up little worms crawling around its edges. Impatience? Nervousness? No way to know for sure.“No,” I told him. “And if I can’t find one in a few minutes, we’ll have to do it next time.”“Hey, pal, ...
Most of the people who live here travel underground to get anywhere—some subway stops have longer distances between them, that’s all. Now, Staten Island, that’s an island. But it doesn’t get tourists. Neither does the part of the Bronx where the Mole lives. Everything’s the opposite of Manhattan—...
The cellar was one of many that ran under all the buildings on the block. The City Planning Office sold me a set of the plans years ago, and the Mole figured out how we could make all the basements connect to each other by drilling a few holes. It took almost a month for us to finish, but once yo...
Ann said, as I walked her toward the Cigarette. “I even got us a driver for the night,” I told her, so she wouldn’t spook when I opened the back door for her. “And got all dressed up, too,” she tossed back, making an approval-face at my dove-gray alpaca suit. Michelle had made me buy it before I ...
While she did that, I worked on making my own list shorter, trying to narrow it down to that single thread Id need to pull. I turned on CNN to watch the scroll, the mute locked on so I didnt have to listen to the bobblehead dolls. Turned out to be newsreel footage about a Russian journalist n...
They rent houses for the season so they can play here. Mostly on the beach or on the water. Sometimes they play inside. The real rich ones, they own houses, but they use them only in the summer.The summers are perfect here, but the winters are ugly and hard. The people who live here all year wait...
It had to happen—a pit bull would drop a bite sooner than Morales would walk away on the losing end. It would have been okay, but Max was with me. About four steps behind, in my shadow. Morales is about my height but he goes about two–twenty—none of it fat. He was a born head–cracker, not a gunma...
I told Hercules for the fiftieth time. “Don’t get fancy. Don’t get cute. They’re not gonna ask you about the other guys in your cell. Anyone does that, you just pin him. With your eyes, okay, don’t chest him. Like, why the fuck would he be breaking security with a question like that, understand?”...
We’d been walking opposite paths when we first met. She knew there were people like me in her world; I never thought there could be anyone like her in mine. Dolly must have known what I’d been doing in that slaughterhouse—my skin color alone would have told her that much. She probably thought she...
And I hadn’t learned about the existence of the FTRA from Mack. I’d let him think that, because it was the only way to make sure Dolly thought that, too. It wasn’t so long ago that I had needed a way to get in and out of Denver without leaving tracks. Not that “paper trail” nonsense TV is always ...
So no informant ever spoke them. Buddha, by contrast, routinely used enough names to fill a small hard drive. Tiger was infamous for a number of things—her outrageous figure and thick mane of gold and black stripes only a small portion of that list. Tracker presumably had a name, but the only one...
It was 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon in August, about eighty-five degrees and still clear-bright. With his back flat against the storage shack on the roof, he was invisible to anyone looking up from the ground. He knew from observation that neither the tourist helicopters nor the police versions ...
And the medic had been so panic-stricken that he’d forgotten to drop his kit before running for his life. “Those who manage to return to base, each will have his own story to tell, but they all will match. Lying is the Esperanto of cowards.” Olaf spoke as he always did, in the confidently command...
Each of us waited, each in his own way. One especially fine day, Lamont and I were anticipating Brewster’s arrival—he had promised to bring some fresh batteries for our radio. The early-afternoon sun was still strong, and we relaxed under its soothing warmth. Our pleasure was enriched by the know...
Cross told the others, now including Tracker, who had entered soundlessly. He was crouched next to the Akita, whispering in some language none of the others recognized. The Akita responded by lying down. Tracker scratched the beast behind one ear. Princess glowed with pride—all his hard work spen...
Accustomed to domination of all he sees, the beast was unaware that what he does not see was now holding him captive. His captor dialed in with great care—only a perfectly placed shot would preserve the trophy he had paid so much to take. The lion was no menacing figure to the human cradling the ...
By the time I started school, everyone was telling me I could be anything I wanted, do anything I wanted to do. At home, too—I had very supportive, encouraging parents. But there was only one thing I ever wanted to be: a writer. Just a writer. That’s the wrong word, “just.” It trivializes somethi...