Safe House: A Burke Novel (Paperback)

I've been in on the Burke novels since the first one, Flood,
was dropped in my lap. I kinda liked the half-assed detective
character, and I was willing to go along with Vachss' evolution
of the character and his environment, but this novel represents
a definitive "mining of the old".

It's just short of becoming a parody of itself, and I don't
like it. Vachss has stripped down his usual dialogue and
character interactions down to the bone; it's really as if he's
now writing these novels from a template, where he plugs in
the scenario and picks from the usual menu of plot devices.

Perhaps I'm simply tired of Burke's world. The Prof's rhyming
is truly awful now, and I no longer find it a simple thing to
suspend disbelief during most of the book. I think the only
character preserved from my broad brush happens to be Max,
and I suspect it's partly because he doesn't speak, but mostly,
because Vachss now treats him as a deus ex machina and as such,
he's mostly an object rather than a person.

<sigh> I know this is not good news for loyal readers. However,
I have to write 'em like I see 'em, and this world has run its
course. Perhaps Vachss will take some time off, re-examine
where Burke is and where should be, and come up with something
fresh. He needs it.

This story starts off with a favour for a fellow ex-con. The ex-con has accidentally killed an abusive husband whom he was supposed to be warning away from his battered wife. The story then quickly progresses to the safe house of the book's title and the battered women who are sheltered there. At first it appears that the rest of the book would be about Burke and his partners providing protection for these women, but before you know it, the focus shifts on to a neo-Nazi movement. With the constant changes of focus, I found the plot a little hard to follow as I tried to remember the motivation behind what was taking place.

This is hardboiled all the way as Burke displays a willingness to do just about anything as long as it means getting the job done. A little more attention to explaining what was going on and a little less to attitude would have gone a long way.

There is indeed a plot, which blends white-supremacist movements with the societal problems of stalking and spousal abuse. To help out old friend Herk and new friend Crystal Beth, Burke and his "family" find themselves needing to murder a couple of bad guys in cold blood and put all their lives on the line to derail a plan to level a Federal building in NYC with half a dozen truckloads of explosives.

Burke finds himself working with an enigmatic undercover figure who calls himself Pryce, and who is multiply connected to the local and state police, and Feds, in extraordinary ways. There is a hint that Pryce may enter Burke's life again, once he gets a new face; let's hope he does.

In summary, this is another chilling Vachss tour of the underbelly of our society. If you have a strong stomach, it's a tour you won't regret taking.