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 voice about the time he killed Pansy. He has tried for the last decade to get it back; new characters, new settings, new genres...none of those books contain the grit, clarity, surprising hooks and emotion that he was able to imbibe into his early Burke revenge-thrillers. The reason is probably that he has changed; he: the author, he: the businessman. He is now writing to pay for the toys he bought with the proceeds of his good hard-won inventions. He is no longer writing because he has a message he needs to get out. A story to tell. A ghost in his spine. He has a lazy, publisher-owned editor who never, never, never will send his story back for re-tooling because that would slow down the money train.It's a sad thing to see, when an author becomes ensconced in his tower of success where he slowly loses readers because he has stopped struggling to create a quality product and has resorted to writing from a template, writing for a paycheck, and writing poor-quality pap.This will be my last Vachss. I may pick up a future book of his at a lending library just to see if he is able to Koontz his way out of this downward spiral (Dean Koontz pulled out of the quality-dive in 2001 with his 'Odd series' and now writes better than he did in the 90's) but the chances are that he is satisfied with his past success and not listening to critics. The first Vachss novel I've read (or heard of) that doesn't involve the avenging angel Burke, THE WEIGHT was really involving. This is a character study in depth, the story of a bad guy (a tough professional thief) who takes the fall for a rape he did not commit, in order to avoid using his real alibi, which was a robbery -- he's a standup bad guy who refuses to roll over on his confederates. He serves the time, but upon release, things get wierd, then wierder, as he tries to use his somewhat limited smarts to figure out who's zooming whom. I love love love the voice (and the narrator of the audio version). You can hear Burke's fierce protection of women, his respect for the truth, and his relentless pursuit of justice. What you also get in this book is an authentic, inside-out view of the life of a professional thief. I was sad when the story ran down.
What do You think about The Weight (2010)?
Kinetic. Beautifully written. A hell of a piece of crime fiction.
—mbitjita
Not as good as his other stand alone novels.
—mc2011
