Dead and Gone: A Burke Novel

Rating:
Summary: A nice place to visit, but I hop he doesn't live there.
Review: I love Andrew Vachss' work, his novels and his public life. I first found "Hard Candy" in a closing out sale of a bookstore in Buffalo and I have been hooked ever since, devouring everyone I could find. I am grateful to the Mamroneck Public Library for having such a complete selection of the Burke novels, because that got me through the working day last summer.

So you can imagine my excitement when "Dead & Gone" came out. It has an amazing, and heartbreaking, opening. In a ransom exchange gone wrong, Burke is pinned down in an ambush and only saved by Pansy - his mastiff and partner - sacrificing her life for him.

Burke survives and is now on a quest for revenge. The first hundred pages are great. The usual cast of characters - and I can't think of a series with a more vibrant and fully realized supporting cast - rallies around to help him. He tracks the hit back to Brookyln and there are fireworks.

However, when the trail takes him to the Portland, Oregon, the book grinds to a halt. There are pages and pages of Burke basically hanging out in Portland. Burke goes to the bookstore! Burke goes to the poolhall! Whee. It takes a long time for the plot to move ahead very little.

Gem, the Cambodian girl who falls for him, is an interesting character. (Although she'd be a lot more interesting if she did something other than eat.) And it's nice to see a girlfriend of Burke's that doesn't die. (I was starting to think this was Michael Landon on Bonanza.) But Burke's "performance problems" seem to be a direct lift from "Hard Candy," and likewise the solution to said problems.

I didn't find the villain to be that terrifying or frightening. (And I didn't think that the way they dealt with him worked at all.) The idea behind him and the threat he represented was believable, but the character is just a con man.

The end of the novel has Burke pondering a move to Portland for good. Oh, I hope not. I'm sure Portland has its problems, but it's not New York! What about the great supporting players? Gem doesn't hold a candle to Silent Max, Mama, the Mole, and the Prof. I will miss them sorely if that threat becomes a reality.

Rating:
Summary: The End of the Road
Review: I must admit I was surprised to read the other reviews here and find that other fans of Vachss's writing actually celebrated what I found so disturbing in this book.

Andrew Vachss is a difficult writer to review, in one sense. He never, for one moment, allows the reader to separate his work's content from any stylistic considerations, and he also never allows the reader to forget that while the story may be fiction, the material he deals in is drawn directly from reality. In this sense, all his books are modern morality tales. I have always loved his work for this, as I suspect most fans do.

And so I came to this new book, if not overly optimistic (the series felt like it really came to an end in Footsteps of the Hawk for me) at least hopeful. But as I read I became more and more disturbed. And because Mr. Vachss has made the claim that he may not write well, but writes for a good cause, I'm going to addres my criticism strictly in those terms.

To pinpoint the problem, I decided to go back to the beginning, to the book that had delighted and exhilarated me--Flood. The contrast between the two novels made the problem clear. In Flood, the driving force is justice. Maybe not justice in terms of the legal system, but absolute, old testament justice. There is humor in the comic subplot, in which a different kind of justice is rendered, and when Flood kills her enemy, she is filled with joy. It is not a bloodthirsty joy. It is not even vengeful, though the book is touted as a revenge thriller. The man had comitted the ultimate crime--the murder of a child--and until he paid in the only way that could mean anything--with his life--the balance of the universe was shaken.

In Dead and Gone, Vachss has moved from justice to pure nihilism. Burke is not acting out of a need for justice but a need for revenge. There is no consolation in killing the men who killed his companion, and he doesn't expect there to be. This is no longer a world where the possibility or even the concept of justice exists. There is nothing but dumb hatred.

And for me, this is where I finally part company with Mr. Burke. Because in a world in which there is no morality, one can have no morality tales. With no possibility of redemption--and one way or another, all the former books had at their core some form of redemption--there can be no meaning and thus no story. Some may argue that Mr. Vachss is simply writing the truth he knows from his work--that the world indeed has no justice, no morality, that there is no point in trying to be better than the perpetrators of evil. But in that case, as I said, there is no story. Fiction depends on conflict, and the Burke series has always been about the battle between good and evil, no matter how oddly the good may have been portrayed. But there no longer seems to be any difference between Burke and the people he fights. Which means that there is nothing left from which to create a story.

Rating:
Summary: First Burke I've enjoyed in a while
Review: I respect the heck out of Andrew Vachss' ideas and his issues, but those things are not why I read mystery novels. I loved the first few books in the Burke series-- found them taut and edgy, dark and smart. Lately though I had the feeling that the medium had gotten lost in the message and I'd found the books harder and harder to read.

_Dead and Gone_ takes Burke in a new direction and takes a little bit of the crusading hero out of my favorite anti-hero. The death of Pansy and his new face force him in a new direction and into the reach of new characters in a different part of the country. I liked the character of Gem (even if I'm a little jealous of every other woman in Burke's life :)) and I found Burke a lot more interesting this time around.

It isn't perfect, and the plot ends up feeling a bit contrived, particularly at the end. But the mood is pretty close to right on, and that's what I read Vachss' novels for anyhow.

Rating:
Summary: Burke Inaction
Review: I've read all of the Burke novels and am a loyal follower of the series. But the latest was a bit of a disappointment. Vachss was apparently aiming for a dramatic change in the series. But unfortunately after a great opening in which Burke is shot, feigns amnesia in the hospital and makes a life-threatening escape, the book slows down, way down. On the plus side, the attempt on his life causes Burke to do some serious soul searching, which provides more insight into his damaged psyche. Unfortunately, the great set up fails to pay off on its high expectations. The story slows to a crawl during the search, and never really gets going again. Burke's latest femme fatale, the Cambodian Gem, is an interesting character but only about average for the series. The climatic confrontation, usually the strength of any Burke novel, is disappointing.

Overall, I rank this entry in the Burke saga near the bottom with "Down in the Zero" and "Footsteps of the Hawk." It isn't bad, but it isn't as good as it should have been.

Rating:
Summary: Burke - tougher than ever
Review: In this gritty and most suspenseful thriller, Burke is back and more focused than ever. If you like books that take you to the edge, with characters bent on revenge and justice, than this book is certianly for you. I have been a Burke fanatic since Strega came out, and this one is certainly worth the ride. Andrew Vachss has done it again - harder and better than ever.

Rating:
Summary: Burke - tougher than ever
Review: In this gritty and most suspenseful thriller, Burke is back and more focused than ever. If you like books that take you to the edge, with characters bent on revenge and justice, than this book is certianly for you. I have been a Burke fanatic since Strega came out, and this one is certainly worth the ride. Andrew Vachss has done it again - harder and better than ever.

Rating:
Summary: Morphing
Review: In this installment Burke moves closer in appearance to Vachss,after being ambushed early in the book. Is his perception changing? Rage as always been a key element to Burke/Vachss and this series continues to evolve. Less action than earlier chapters, but this is as informative and unusual as the others. This series is unlike anything out there.

Rating:
Summary: Dead and Gone is hair-raising!
Review: It's not an unusual job for Burke to act as a middleman in an exchange of cash for a kidnapped child. This time the only things exchanged are bullets & they're all meant for Burke.

Reading an Andrew Vachss book is to race through a tunnel at top speed, briefly catching sight of stops only to be hurtled on to the next. With tense jolts Vachss drives us relentlessly through every intersection & offers us panting station halts for memories long since forgotten; or hoped so. There is a lean & hungry feel to Vachss' writing & yet, for the first time, I note a bubbling up of humor. A thrilling & unput-downable adventure!

If you haven't read any of Andrew Vachss' hair-raising philosophical thrillers I do encourage you to do so. For my full review do check out [my website].

Rating:
Summary: Just when you thought you knew everything....
Review: Just when you thought you knew everything about Burke, the anti-antihero of Andrew Vachss's crime fiction, along comes Dead and Gone.

If you're new to Burke's world, this probably isn't the book to start with. It's as much (if not more) of a page-turner as the previous eleven novels in which Burke is featured, and the uninitiated reader will certainly find it entertaining. But to fully appreciate the revelations here, you ought to read at least one earlier effort.

For those who have, and had concluded that Burke was about as malleable as titanium, this book will surprise you.

There's nothing forced about the changes, either. After he is very nearly assassinated, and he watches a loved one die before his eyes, you know Burke will not emerge the same. What we learn about him as a result adds immeasurably to the depth of one of the most complex and memorable characters in crime fiction. On second thought, make that fiction period.

Rating:
Summary: Burke Is Back... With A Vengance!
Review: Leave it to Andrew Vachss to breathe new life into his Noir Champion, Burke. Trying to buy back a long missing child, Burke is set up by a group of professional killers, shot several times; and left for dead beside his Neopolitan Warrior, Pansy... BIG Mistake!!! The story just gets better and better from there. With a change of scenery to the west coast and the development of a new crew. Premiere among them, a slender Cambodian girl named Gem. Who assists Burke in hunting down those who arranged and paid for the botched hit. The action moves for NYC, to Portland and back. Where Mama, Max, The Prof, Michelle and Mole cook up a splendidly contrived plan. With the help of Sonny, the young, troubled driver from 'Down In The Zero'. Plus a brief, yet telling visit from Detective Morales. Vachss and Burke hit all the buttons in this tale. Making it one of his best, and well worth the wait for its arrival in SoftCover.