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Choice of Evil : A Burke Novel (Burke Novels)

Choice of Evil : A Burke Novel (Burke Novels)

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Spiralling into the light
Review: A fast-paced and dark descent into a fascinating story. When Burke's bisexual girlfriend is killed at a gay rights rally, he vows to find the culprit. When a serial killer starts murdering fagbashers and child molesters by using the killing motifs of a dead friend of Burke's, Burke wonders about how dead his friend actually is. This being the first book by Vachss I read, I was a bit confused about the characters, but it didn't daunt me from pursuing the story, rather it made me more intrigued about this Burke guy and his relations with his friends. What I most like about this book is the depths of the characters, they're fully fleshed and yet mysterious enough to warrant curiosity. After a couple dozen pages, I couldn't put the book down if I'd tried.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A solid, but not great, outing for Vacchs
Review: The Burke series is generally a great one. Vacchs, an attorney who represents juveniles only, and who has a professional resume that proves he knows first-hand the horror that abused children experience, always generates an aura of reality in his writing. The cruelty to children depicted in the Burke books is truly disturbing, because you know as you read it that this stuff really goes on. Burke, a hard-bitten criminal, has enough redeeming qualities to make him a great anti-hero. Among those redeeming qualities are a sense of deep loyalty to his "family" -- the close friends he has chosen (and who have chosen him), who will stick together in the face of any adversity. The other major redeeming quality is his simmering fury directed at abusers of children. The two come together in this book after Burke's girlfriend is killed at a gay rally and he goes on the vengeance trail, which of course leads him into the child abuse underworld. The primary flaw in this novel is the strained dialogue between Burke and an important secondary character, Nadine, who is a gay domninatrix with a bizarre sexual fascination with Burke. His tough-guy posturing with her is more or less in character, but it grows tiresome by the half way point, and continues unabated from there. Nevertheless, Burke is always a good read. As one of the other reviewers points out, however, it is hard to follow all the characters unless you've read the other books. I'd start with the first and read them in order. There is a linear development of the characters and plot that will make the book much more enjoyable if you know it going in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Vachss's Unmistakable Voice Rings with Truth
Review: Those familiar with Andrew Vachss's work know that there is a spine around which he builds all that he writes. That spine is child abuse, yet each work is a distinctly separate creation, the commonalities as diverse as the creatures we label mammals--as diverse as Burke's family and Homo Erectus. With "Choice of Evil" Vachss once again goes into new territory but even as he does so there is no mistaking his voice--lean to the point of skeletal, authentic, compelling, powerful--and there is no mistaking, either, that by focusing on the very real subject of fag bashing, Vachss again transcends all those let's-just-tell-a-story books that are, finally, empty at the core. "Choice of Evil" resonates in the way only truth can; it will echo through you and change the way that you SEE.


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