Down Here

March 1, 2004
Burke is back with a vengeance, and with the full complement of underground irregulars who've populated his dozen or so previous noir adventures. For starters, there's Max the Silent and the Prof (short for both Professor and Prophet), Pepper, Mole and Michelle, street folks all, as well as the giant menacing rottweiler known as Bruiser, who protects the beautiful crime fighter Wolfe. No series offers a richer world of night people, or one as dark and brutal. For the Burke fan, plot becomes almost secondary to the immersion into Vachss's thrillingly seductive downtown Manhattan shadow land. But this installment has a terrific hook as well: Burke and company must come to the rescue when Wolfe, a righteous former prosecutor specializing in sex crimes, is framed for the attempted murder of one of the serial perps she once put away, a lowlife named John Anson Wychek. Vachss's prose is at its brittle best in his presentation of the case against the taciturn Wolfe, as well as Wychek's criminal past. At length, Burke learns that Wychek inexplicably has federal protection, and conceives an elaborate scam to snare him. Posing as reporter pal J.P. Hauser, Burke works his way into the life of Wychek's yuppie sister, Laura. This extended cat-and-mouse game (or perhaps Burke is falling in love?) has quiet depth as well as tension. Burke's an original, often imitated but never matched because Vachss keeps raising the bar.

December 1, 2003
Burke is not happy when the woman he loves, a former sex crimes prosecutor who hates predators as much as he does, is charged with the murder of a brutal rapist.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2004
In the nineteenth Burke novel, convicted rapist John Wychek, released from prison on a technicality, is shot. Before losing consciousness, he implicates Eva Wolfe, the attorney who put him behind bars. Wolfe now works the edges of the system to assist the exploited victims of sex crimes the official bureaucracy can't--or won't--help. Her efforts have taken her to the murky underworld in which Burke eliminates predators--sexual or otherwise. Burke sets about gathering the evidence to free her but finds that Wychek is a key player in a larger scam involving powerful people. Burke, with an assist from his not-so-merry band, hatches a plan of his own to erase Wychek and his accomplices from the game. This is yet another carefully crafted descent into a hellish environment in which sexual predators roam virtually unchecked, at least until targeted by Burke. One would think the same revenge plot would get old when recast again and again, but, amazingly, Vachss adds enough subtle differences to keep each novel unique and engaging.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2004
Here, Vachss's antihero, Burke (Pain Management), returns from the "dead" to help a former colleague arrested for attempting to kill a suspected serial rapist. As Burke begins to pull in old favors and reveal his still-living status to select individuals, he discovers obvious holes in the prosecution's theory. The recent overturning of the alleged rapist's conviction makes all of his victims potential murder suspects. Old characters come back as Burke reminisces about his past and makes a surprising discovery about himself and his current life. Nothing particularly special here, but fans of Burke will want to read his latest exploits. For larger fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/03.]-Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.