Rating: 
Summary: ...A Dish Best Eaten Cold
Review: "You know what it takes to sit across the table from a man, listen to him talk, look into his eyes...and then blow his brains all over the wall paper? Nothing. And the more of that you have, the easier it is."With that introduction, Andrew Vachss starts the reader on a furious journey of evil and its legacy. Burke, Vachss' long time antihero, has been tricked into carrying out a kidnapping payoff that suddenly turns into a professional hit - on him. Burke and his partner defend themselves valiantly, but inevitably they fail. Burke is left a shattered hulk with a bullet in his head, and his closest companion is killed. Amazingly, Burke survives. Driven by a thirst for revenge, and helped by his friends, he overcomes the hospital, the police, his wounds, and partial blindness. Once recovered, using the appearance of his death as a cover, Burke begins a hunt that will take you from New York to Portland, Oregon. It is a journey like no other Burke has taken, and it is not certain whether transformation or death lay at the end of it. Gradually the mystery is unraveled. In Burke's world nothing is ever quite how it appears, and revenge turns into retribution. Andrew Vachss' books always leave the reader suspended between the excitement and fascination of a well-told tale and genuine horror at the monsters that stalk through them. Even Burke's associates and friends are monstrous in their nature. Michelle, Mole, the Prof and other long time friends are all here. In addition you will find many new characters. Rune, a fellow refugee from an institution, who is a brilliant genius on a futile quest searching for the parents he never had. And Gem, a Cambodian woman who struggles to help Burke find a way to love again. Vachss populates his novels with the Children of the Secret, Victims of child abuse and worse, bent forever by their nightmares. In Vachss' books the victims, the monsters and those that struggle against them are all touched by this plague. This is a very different Burke than we are used to. Deeply focussed and haunted by the events surrounding his 'death', Burke must face his own vulnerability and decide whether the nothing, the Zero, will consume him or whether he will find another way to change. In either case, the Burke we know will become 'dead and gone.' Vachss books are not easy to read. This is true noir fiction, true horror. Because it is focused on Burke's need for revenge for most of the book, Dead and Gone actually seems more accessible than most. Perhaps Burke as a victim is easier to deal with than some others that have appeared in this series. Vachss' writing style is sparse and compelling, and his pacing is superb, in what may be his best novel yet. For those who are new to this author, Andrew Vachss has had a long background dealing with and working for the victims of child abuse. His is currently a lawyer in private practice that specializes in these cases. He manages to carry this agenda into his books without giving into the temptation to preach or rant. Instead, he presents the horror of the crime and the pain and nobility of it's victims, letting them speak for themselves. These are incredibly strong novels, expect to find yourself changed in the reading. Not merely mystery or suspense, Vachss' books are in a genre by themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Vachss at his best
Review: After a decade passed since their child vanished, a "recovery service" person calls Mama to tell her that she can retrieve the child for a fee. Mama hires Burke to handle the transaction. The party offering the "merchandise" demands safety as the key priority. Burke and his canine buddy Pansy go to the Bronx for the exchange. However, the trade is a sting and the other side pump bullets into Burke and Pansy with the final shot point blank into Burke's head. Pansy is dead while Burke slowly heals from the massive wounds that would have killed most people, but he has hatred to fuel his recovery. His memory is shot to hell, but he knows one thing for sure, he owes some people for this professional hit that required a lot of cash to pull off in such a sophisticated manner. His plan is simple: find them and kill them. Andrew Vachss is either a raving lunatic or an incredibly confident and talented author as he takes a very popular character and literally revamps him while keeping the anti-heroes' core values. In a "death of Superman" type of change, Mr. Vachss refrshens Burke so that long time fans will have a new believable direction to follow and newer readers will see the wisdom of that path. The current tale, DEAD AND GONE, is taut as only Mr. Vachss can write it and exciting. Burke reveals more about himself than usual with lengthy soliloquies that slow down the action, but allows the transition to smoothly occur. A new and perhaps better Burke has emerged from his near-death experience. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating stuff for Burke fans
Review: An amazing trip to the past in a series of flashbacks for Burke's fans. After Burke's dog pansy is killed, and Burke is nearly killed in a hostage exchange that is really a set up, Burke goes on the vengeance trail. Along the way, we find out a lot about Burke's childhood, and get to understand more about how he has become what he is. We meet Lune, a fascinating childhood friend, and are introduced to Gem, a new female lead who promises to stay around for a while to come. (Well, we'll at least get one more book out of Gem. After that, it's anyone's guess, Burke's romantic interests often get hit in the cross fire.) Highly recommended for Burke fans. Start with the earlier stuff if your new to Vacchs. You need to know Burke as an adult to really appreciate this trip to his childhood.
Rating:
Summary: A BRILLIANT ADDITION TO THE "BURKE" SERIES
Review: An assasination attempt leaves Burke near death, psychologically damaged, and without his long-time partner Pansy. On his journey to regain his strength and exact revenge we learn more of Burke's (and his counterpart Wesley's) history than in previous books. A complex and important tale, with crime, international politics and high-tech electronics skillfully interwoven. Paramount, as with all of Mr. Vachss' books, is the importance of protecting children and the danger that comes from failing to do so. A first rate "thriller" with a powerful message. A must for fans of the "Burke" series and new readers alike.
Rating:
Summary: Fast-Paced Action; Magnificent Characters
Review: Andrew Vachss creates the truest, most three-dimensional characters in fiction, people whose emotions are real and whose language is expressive. Gem and Burke develop a warm and romantic communication which is enchanting and exciting. The suspenseful plot is developed with a master's eye for perfection. Yet, there is not a hint of overheated dialogue or flowery passages; problems that spoil so much of fiction written by other authors who have created as many bestsellers as Vachss. He has mastered his art -- but has not fallen into the trap of gilding the lily.
Rating:
Summary: Still Fighting the Holy War
Review: Andrew Vachss delivers another graphic tale of the underground in an entertaining yet educational manner. His dialogue and story are so good you can see the movie in your head so vividly it stays with you in your dreams. Vachss is an artist and a warrior trying to save your children from the scourge by introducing you to the worst of the bad. Read it! Enjoy it! Learn from it!
Rating:
Summary: Only the Greatest
Review: Andrew Vachss is the author of the best hard-boiled suspense novels around. With "Dead and Gone" he's exceeded even his own standards.
Rating:
Summary: Dead and Gone
Review: Andrew Vachss is the undisputed neo-noir master of white-knuckled suspense, and Burke remains one of the most enigmatic presences in literature today. "Dead and Gone" is gripping, a redline excursion into the darker side of society and the human mind. Vachss' finest Burke novel to date. Gary S. Potter Author/Poet.
Rating:
Summary: Another From the Master
Review: Andrew Vachss knows how to catapult the reader square into the middle of a nightmare and make him hang on for dear life. With short staccato sentences, lines that could have been written with a stiletto, lo-fat prose, the absolute authority of one who's been there (and this old warhorse has!) -- Vachss brings to mind Nelson Algren ("The Man with the Golden Arm"), James M. Cain, the best of Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy. "Dead and Gone" is the latest Burke novel, one of a brilliant series about a career criminal and urban man-for-hire. Reading it is like riding a fractious Thoroughbred through uncharted woods. Hard-boiled suspense fiction doesn't get any better.
Rating:
Summary: The darkest chapter yet...
Review: Andrew Vachss' novels about the character known only as Burke are as tough and painful - and as deeply resonant and powerful - as any books ever written. DEAD AND GONE, this new Burke novel, takes the main character - and the reader - to new depths of pain, compassion, and vengeance. From the beginning, you know this one is going to be very different. Burke, who lives in the gray frontier between law and lawlessness, has confronted the worst of human monsters in his previous books, people who prey upon children, who commit the unforgivable crime of murdering innocence. Burke's crusade to obliterate such creatures (which mirrors that of attorney/children's right advocate Vachss) has earned him the enmity of a great many people, and one of them has planned Burke's death. The plot nearly succeeds, and by the end of the first dozen pages, one of Burke's closest friends lies dead, and Burke himself is nearly killed, losing the sight in one eye. His goal now is revenge, not only for himself, but for the loss of the one living creature closest to him. In effect, Burke becomes "dead and gone," vanishing even beneath the radar of the underground's whisper-stream, in order to track down those responsible. The motives for the attack, however, turn out to be more than just a desire for Burke's death, which he learns with the assistance of Gem, a young Cambodian woman who becomes one of Burke's aides and more, and Burke's old friend Lune, who has developed a system of drawing order and patterns from seeming chaos. The novel is filled with rich and enigmatic characters, dark and gritty settings, and terse, ice-cold prose. What sets it apart from the other books, however, is the change that occurs in Burke, not just physically, but psychologically. There is a spiritual death and rebirth here, a learning process with lessons so hard that I doubt if anyone with less rigor than Burke could survive them. But survive them he does, and comes out on the other side changed, and for the better. We are in the presence of a different Burke by the book's end, no less intense, no less dedicated to his goals, no less devoted to his chosen family, but a Burke who has learned other ways of dealing with his enemies and with his fears, and perhaps a Burke who is, at long last, loved, and who has learned to accept and give love in return. The Burke saga is no literary franchise, but a series written with depth and passion. Unlike most series characters, Burke grows, develops, and changes, and Vachss has chronicled these changes with dark brilliance. DEAD AND GONE is a defining chapter and an enlightening moment of transition in the long, hard story of Burke. At the same time, it is a stark, compassionate, and strangely different novel by one of the most original and ferocious voices in American fiction. I cannot recommend it too highly.
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