Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

I've long been a big fan of Andew Vachs and his literary alter-ego, Burke. Andrew Vachs website

for those of you who don't know, Vachs is a crime writer of a particularly hard-boiled type of fiction. His main character, Burke, is a professional thief and former orphan who hunts and sometimes kills child predators.

He has a non-biological family whose support and loyalty are unquestioned in the underground world of New York City: Mama, the tough as nails owner of a Chinese restaurant and matriarch of an underground crime ring; Silent Max, the deaf martial arts expert who may very well be the deadliest man alive; Immaculata and Flower, Max's wife and child; Michelle, a transgendered person and Burke's "sister," the Prof, Burke's mentor and father figure who always speaks in rhymes; The Mole, a Zionist extremist/mechanical genius who lives in the City Dump, and Clarence, a West Indian "brother" who is also being tutored by the Prof. Last but not least is Burke's partner and best friend - Pansy - a 140lb. Neopolitan Mastiff that is the best bodyguard a man could ask for.

Other characters that come and go are Morales, an old-time cop who hates Burke but appreciates his passion for going after freaks; and Wolfe, the assistant DA/female rights advocate who may have a thing for Burke.

These characters are in every one of the 14 or so Burke novels...they all grow and evolve over the course of the novels like you would expect, too. And they are all wonderful, colorful and very real.

In real life Vachs has fought for many years on behalf of child rights and in trying to better the Child Protective Services departments that seem to fail in the service of their intended clients so often. This makes him very passionate about his subject matter and that definitely comes across in his writing.

The writing is sparse and hard-boiled - very Raymond Chandler-like. His stories are incredibly dark and feature villians that rape and kill children, human slave runners, psychopathic pimps and cops, and all sorts of miscreants.

The Burke novels are in chronological order, so it's probably best to start with the first one: Flood

Black Lizard/Vintage Crime trade paperbacks have them all and they are gorgeous, over-sized paperbacks...each book cover is a piece of art in itself.

Fantastic series of novels by a great, great writer. I highly recommend them.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

i'm pissed no one's responding to this. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

I'm gonna go buy 'Flood' at the weekend (or Amazon it, at least).

I already have 2 books I've ordered based on recommendations/discussions on OOT/ENT though - 'Created, The Destroyer' and 'Flowers for Algernon', so it'll take a little while to get to it...

PS. I also have to break my OOT/Zone addiction to actually have the spare time to read, but that's a different matter...

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

I've read most of the Burke books; I got tired and quit a few years ago. The one with the underground domestic shelter and terrorists was the last one I read. They're a bit comic booky for me. That being said there is usually at least one moment and sometimes many more that is just heart breakingly real and well written. My favorite book of his is not from the Burke series but Shella, which again has some overdrawn comic book type stuff in it but it's a well conceived story with a satisfying ending. He portrays emotionally damaged people very well and has richer characters than most crime fiction. His book of short stories, Born Bad, is also good.

raisins

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

Dom- assuming you've read them how would these compare to weither Robert Parker's Chandler knock off Spenser, or Jonathan Lethem's motherless brooklyn and Gun, with occassional music?

I really liked Lethem's stuff and Enjoyed Parker, but was wondedring whether these were comparable or stronger..

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
i'm pissed no one's responding to this. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll respond, but I've got nothing of value to add. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

I just realised as I ordered 'Flood' - I've read something by Vachss already. A weird little novel called 'The Ultimate Evil' - featuring Batman!

It's very weird - it's a Batman story about breaking a kiddie pr0n/molestation ring...it doesn't really work, but it was an interesting read, and well-written.

I leant it to a pal, who read it, but returned it with a scowl.

'Did you like it?' I asked.

'Yeah,' he said uncertainly, 'but it was batman and kid-p0rn! What's all that about?!?'


And I knew exactly what he meant.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Dom- assuming you've read them how would these compare to weither Robert Parker's Chandler knock off Spenser, or Jonathan Lethem's motherless brooklyn and Gun, with occassional music?

I really liked Lethem's stuff and Enjoyed Parker, but was wondedring whether these were comparable or stronger..

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry, Man...I've never read either.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
I just realised as I ordered 'Flood' - I've read something by Vachss already. A weird little novel called 'The Ultimate Evil' - featuring Batman!

It's very weird - it's a Batman story about breaking a kiddie pr0n/molestation ring...it doesn't really work, but it was an interesting read, and well-written.

I leant it to a pal, who read it, but returned it with a scowl.

'Did you like it?' I asked.

'Yeah,' he said uncertainly, 'but it was batman and kid-p0rn! What's all that about?!?'


And I knew exactly what he meant.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's very odd.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]

that's very odd.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tell me about it. Check out some of these amazon reviews, they HATE it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custome...te&n=283155


It's really not as bad as these people say, but it is odd.

Like I say, well written, and I've ordered Flood, which sounds VERY cool from the blurb and amazon reviews, BTW [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

Batman and Andrew Vachs do NOT go together. It'd be like having William S. Burroughs write a Benji story.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
It'd be like having William S. Burroughs write a Benji story.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd love that.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

Dom,

Just to let you know that on the basis of this, I went to my local Crime bookshop and picked up a copy of Vachss's (yeah, apparently it's a two s name) blossom.

Apparently he's out of print in the UK, so I got a second hand copy for 2 quid. A review will follow in a while. Thanks for the tip.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Dom,

Just to let you know that on the basis of this, I went to my local Crime bookshop and picked up a copy of Vachss's (yeah, apparently it's a two s name) blossom.

Apparently he's out of print in the UK, so I got a second hand copy for 2 quid. A review will follow in a while. Thanks for the tip.

[/ QUOTE ]

hope you like it...Blossom's like the 5th in the series, but he catches you up fairly well with what has happened before so it shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Dom,

Just to let you know that on the basis of this, I went to my local Crime bookshop and picked up a copy of Vachss's (yeah, apparently it's a two s name) blossom.

Apparently he's out of print in the UK, so I got a second hand copy for 2 quid. A review will follow in a while. Thanks for the tip.

[/ QUOTE ]

did you ever read the book, Brit? Just wondering....

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

Seeing this bump brought me over here for the first time, and Dominic was nice enough to invite me in, I guess I'll throw my opinion in too.

I used to be a big fan of Vachss' stuff, but unfortunately while when he's good he's very, very good, when he's bad he justifies all the contempt out there for genre fiction. I think he lost it several years ago. Burke especially is a caricature of his former self, and most of his other stuff takes itself so seriously that it makes me cringe, despite some really slick writing in places.

Vachss has always said that he doesn't consider himself a writer, it's just something he does because it furthers his cause, which is improving the conditions for abused children. Writing books gave him an opportunity to take a shot at the conditions that he believes cause the problem, rather than just helping each individual child as he can (which is why he wrote a Batman novel. It reached an audience his other stuff never would. It's not so weird, Batman is just as close a descendant of Philip Marlowe as Arkady Renko or Harry Bosch are).

I can appreciate this as a worthy cause, but about the same time he started producing comic books (thats not a metaphor, he does actually write comics as well) he went over the edge, and his prose started turning people away from his message. If you can't recommend his stuff, you can't spread his word.

Which is a pity, because I think his first half-dozen or so novels were some of the best noir stuff written in the late eighties. He's not so much in the Spenser vein (though Spenser has the same problem these days, he and Hawk are supermen) as Richard Stark's Parker (remember Payback, with Mel Gibson? This was an adaptation of the first Parker novel) or Garry Disher's Wyatt. Really spare writing, criminal protagonists who are so professional they've left some of their humanity behind, and worlds where there are no good guys. There's nothing refined about Burke. He's a pit bull who would rather hit first and get home alive than see whether there's a need to fight in the first place.

The first one, Flood, is a little shaky - I don't think he'd quite figured out who Burke is yet - but the second, Strega, and probably up to Sacrifice are fantastic. Then Max starts turning into the deadliest man alive, Burke starts getting laid more than James Bond (and the sex starts getting a little misogynistic), and I start wondering whether some intern is actually knocking these out while Vachss works the talk show circuit. You're getting the soup Mama serves to customers, not the stuff she keeps for family.

A few of the non-Burke ones are worthwhile though. Shella has already been mentioned, Getaway Man is ok, and a lot of the short stories in Born Bad and Everybody Pays work. But once you've been through those switch to Richard Stark, or James Ellroy, or Lawrence Block, or F Paul Wilson, or early Elmore Leonard.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Seeing this bump brought me over here for the first time, and Dominic was nice enough to invite me in, I guess I'll throw my opinion in too.

I used to be a big fan of Vachss' stuff, but unfortunately while when he's good he's very, very good, when he's bad he justifies all the contempt out there for genre fiction. I think he lost it several years ago. Burke especially is a caricature of his former self, and most of his other stuff takes itself so seriously that it makes me cringe, despite some really slick writing in places.

Vachss has always said that he doesn't consider himself a writer, it's just something he does because it furthers his cause, which is improving the conditions for abused children. Writing books gave him an opportunity to take a shot at the conditions that he believes cause the problem, rather than just helping each individual child as he can (which is why he wrote a Batman novel. It reached an audience his other stuff never would. It's not so weird, Batman is just as close a descendant of Philip Marlowe as Arkady Renko or Harry Bosch are).

I can appreciate this as a worthy cause, but about the same time he started producing comic books (thats not a metaphor, he does actually write comics as well) he went over the edge, and his prose started turning people away from his message. If you can't recommend his stuff, you can't spread his word.

Which is a pity, because I think his first half-dozen or so novels were some of the best noir stuff written in the late eighties. He's not so much in the Spenser vein (though Spenser has the same problem these days, he and Hawk are supermen) as Richard Stark's Parker (remember Payback, with Mel Gibson? This was an adaptation of the first Parker novel) or Garry Disher's Wyatt. Really spare writing, criminal protagonists who are so professional they've left some of their humanity behind, and worlds where there are no good guys. There's nothing refined about Burke. He's a pit bull who would rather hit first and get home alive than see whether there's a need to fight in the first place.

The first one, Flood, is a little shaky - I don't think he'd quite figured out who Burke is yet - but the second, Strega, and probably up to Sacrifice are fantastic. Then Max starts turning into the deadliest man alive, Burke starts getting laid more than James Bond (and the sex starts getting a little misogynistic), and I start wondering whether some intern is actually knocking these out while Vachss works the talk show circuit. You're getting the soup Mama serves to customers, not the stuff she keeps for family.

A few of the non-Burke ones are worthwhile though. Shella has already been mentioned, Getaway Man is ok, and a lot of the short stories in Born Bad and Everybody Pays work. But once you've been through those switch to Richard Stark, or James Ellroy, or Lawrence Block, or F Paul Wilson, or early Elmore Leonard.

[/ QUOTE ]

wow, thanks for the in depth words...even if I don't agree with you! I do feel his earlier Burke novels are leaner, more jarring and blistering...but I still love the later novels and how Burke has had to evolve...along with his family.

I've never read any Parker...but I love Ellroy and Leonard...

what did you think of Two Trains Running?

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

If there was no disagreement it would be a pretty boring forum, no? Still, I was pretty harsh. Of the later books, I definitely appreciate the ones where Burke has had to evolve more - I'm thinking of the big upset in his life and the subsequent stint in Portland - but it's mainly the way his family is treated that ruins them for me. They stop being real people and turn into plot devices. We need some advice, let's go talk to the Prof; we need a heavy, let's go get Max.

I haven't actually read Two Trains Running. I don't think I've read more than a few of his last seven or eight, and I'm not American so race relations in the corrupt South doesn't have a lot of resonance for me. Good, bad, middling?

In checking which one Two Trains Running was though I noticed that Vachss has a new Burke novel coming out next month, Terminal. I'll probably pick it up after this discussion.

You're in for a treat if you haven't read any Parker before. He's the original professional. The first books are from the sixties and seventies - though they often don't have the dated prose that a lot of stuff from that period has, thanks to the subsequent popularization of their style twenty years later - and then there's a twenty year gap to the next bunch. Richard Stark is the pen name under which Donald E Westlake (yup, the same Westlake who wrote the script for The Grifters) writes his more noirish stuff.

To diverge for a moment, did you manage to finish Ellroy's The Cold Six Thousand? I have a theory that he was trying to emulate James Joyce's Ulysses with it, and produce something that could be both a masterpiece and virtually unreadable at the same time.

It might be more appropriate in another thread, but given the names I've thrown up, is there anyone I might not have read that you would recommend?

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
If there was no disagreement it would be a pretty boring forum, no? Still, I was pretty harsh. Of the later books, I definitely appreciate the ones where Burke has had to evolve more - I'm thinking of the big upset in his life and the subsequent stint in Portland - but it's mainly the way his family is treated that ruins them for me. They stop being real people and turn into plot devices. We need some advice, let's go talk to the Prof; we need a heavy, let's go get Max.

I haven't actually read Two Trains Running. I don't think I've read more than a few of his last seven or eight, and I'm not American so race relations in the corrupt South doesn't have a lot of resonance for me. Good, bad, middling?

In checking which one Two Trains Running was though I noticed that Vachss has a new Burke novel coming out next month, Terminal. I'll probably pick it up after this discussion.

You're in for a treat if you haven't read any Parker before. He's the original professional. The first books are from the sixties and seventies - though they often don't have the dated prose that a lot of stuff from that period has, thanks to the subsequent popularization of their style twenty years later - and then there's a twenty year gap to the next bunch. Richard Stark is the pen name under which Donald E Westlake (yup, the same Westlake who wrote the script for The Grifters) writes his more noirish stuff.

To diverge for a moment, did you manage to finish Ellroy's The Cold Six Thousand? I have a theory that he was trying to emulate James Joyce's Ulysses with it, and produce something that could be both a masterpiece and virtually unreadable at the same time.

It might be more appropriate in another thread, but given the names I've thrown up, is there anyone I might not have read that you would recommend?

[/ QUOTE ]

Two Trains Running was very good...not quite great, though.

I have not read that Ellroy novel...and since we're talking this genre and you mentioned The Grifters, IMO, no one has come close to touching Jim Thompson.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

i think i have read the last four he put out. The trains one was pretty good, i agree its not great, but i found it inresting enough to finish and ive to my dad.

he put out a book of short stories which i thought was really good although im not a big fan of short stories at all.

i read the last 2 burke novels, which i thought were great, i felt like i was cheating on my diet, i hoestly couldnt put them down and finished both in less than a day.

i plan on going back to the begining and starting with flood im glad to hear that its good.

i think i read somewhere he was kinda the influence for a chacter in law and order svu, but i dont know if that was true. The author not burke.. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
although burke would be cooler

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

Just finished the latest Burke novel, Terminal. Better than some of the previous few, imho. Burke is still serious cat, everyone is still amazingly good at what they do, but there is more depth in the supporting characters in this one, and some character evolution is hinted at for the main players. The little diversions he puts in for local colour work well in this one too, and he's still very well-researched. Worth a go if you're a fan.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Dom- assuming you've read them how would these compare to weither Robert Parker's Chandler knock off Spenser, or Jonathan Lethem's motherless brooklyn and Gun, with occassional music?

I really liked Lethem's stuff and Enjoyed Parker, but was wondedring whether these were comparable or stronger..

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know Lethem's, but I love both the Spenser and Burke books. I'd say Parker is the better writer.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

[ QUOTE ]
Just finished the latest Burke novel, Terminal. Better than some of the previous few, imho. Burke is still serious cat, everyone is still amazingly good at what they do, but there is more depth in the supporting characters in this one, and some character evolution is hinted at for the main players. The little diversions he puts in for local colour work well in this one too, and he's still very well-researched. Worth a go if you're a fan.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have this one yet! I must rectify that immediately.

Re: Andrew Vachs\' Burke novels
 

There's a change in narrative technique (I'm trying not to spoil anything here) in this one. It only happens in two or three places, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. It has some positive and some negative impacts for me, and I'm still up in the air about whether I like it or not, but I'd be interested in why you think he did it.