Burke is one of the most cold-blooded yet strangely honorable heroes in the history of crime fiction, an outlaw who makes his living by preying on the most vicious of New York City’s bottom-feeders, those who thrive on the suffering of children. In Andrew Vachss’s tautly engrossing novel Burke is given a purse full of dirty money to find the infamous Ghost Van that is cutting a lethal swath among the teenage prostitutes in the ‘hood. He also gets help in the form of a stripper named Belle, whose moves on the runway are outclassed only by what she can do in a getaway car. But not even Burke is prepared for the evil that is behind the Ghost Van or for the sheer menace of its guardian, a cadaverous karate expert who enjoys killing so much that he has named himself after death.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Burke, the private-eye outlaw with a big place in his heart for kids, is back. When the yuppie-hating horse-playing ex-con takes on the Times Square world of porn and murder, he finds himself facing a deadly karateka (karate expert) named Mortay and falling for a masochistic woman who's learning to deal with her past as an abused child. Burke's quest leads him through the seamy underworld that Vachss has nearly patented in Strega and Flood. Blue Belle often reads like parody of hardboiled detective novels. Short sentences. Punchy. Missing verbs. Yet without Chandler's originality or sense of humor. Though the dialogue has a cynical cast, there is not an ounce of moral ambiguity or ironythe evil child-molester/torturer/ killers versus Burke's family of misfits-with-hearts-of-gold, including a tough Asian matriarch, a tough would-be transsexual, a tough jack-of-all-shady-trades and a host of other gruff but goodhearted low-lifes, each with a redeeming mission in life. That lovable band of grotesques seems to have been drawn from some juvenile novel. The sex scenes, on the other hand, are explicit and a touch sadistic. Blue Belle lacks the jolting realism of Elmore Leonard or the hard poetry of Dash Hammett, yet Vachss's style pays off in the last quarter of the book, when an elaborate scam, a roller coaster of violence and an emotional bang all build to an abrupt climax that leaves the heart pounding. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Better order more than one copy of this thriller. Readers will be tearing the pages apart to find out what happens next as Vachss reaches new heights, and depths, in this third entry in his investigator Burke series. Again the hero's special morality draws him into a case involving the sleaziest sex factories in New York, darting from strip joints to massage parlors to a mysterious Ghost Van that kidnaps very young girls for kiddie-porn and snuff videos. Burke's unorthodox "family" of helpers are here, and new love interest Belle participates in some very steamy sex scenes. Violence laced with the bizarre, the super-cool, and wit, this novel certifies Vachss as a first-rate writer on crime, the underworld, and the pits of the human heart and soul. Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
Burke is one of the most cold-blooded yet strangely honorable heroes in the history of crime fiction, an outlaw who makes his living by preying on the most vicious of New York City’s bottom-feeders, those who thrive on the suffering of children.
In Andrew Vachss’s tautly engrossing novel Burke is given a purse full of dirty money to find the infamous Ghost Van that is cutting a lethal swath among the teenage prostitutes in the ‘hood. He also gets help in the form of a stripper named Belle, whose moves on the runway are outclassed only by what she can do in a getaway car. But not even Burke is prepared for the evil that is behind the Ghost Van or for the sheer menace of its guardian, a cadaverous karate expert who enjoys killing so much that he has named himself after death.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Burke, the private-eye outlaw with a big place in his heart for kids, is back. When the yuppie-hating horse-playing ex-con takes on the Times Square world of porn and murder, he finds himself facing a deadly karateka (karate expert) named Mortay and falling for a masochistic woman who's learning to deal with her past as an abused child. Burke's quest leads him through the seamy underworld that Vachss has nearly patented in Strega and Flood. Blue Belle often reads like parody of hardboiled detective novels. Short sentences. Punchy. Missing verbs. Yet without Chandler's originality or sense of humor. Though the dialogue has a cynical cast, there is not an ounce of moral ambiguity or ironythe evil child-molester/torturer/ killers versus Burke's family of misfits-with-hearts-of-gold, including a tough Asian matriarch, a tough would-be transsexual, a tough jack-of-all-shady-trades and a host of other gruff but goodhearted low-lifes, each with a redeeming mission in life. That lovable band of grotesques seems to have been drawn from some juvenile novel. The sex scenes, on the other hand, are explicit and a touch sadistic. Blue Belle lacks the jolting realism of Elmore Leonard or the hard poetry of Dash Hammett, yet Vachss's style pays off in the last quarter of the book, when an elaborate scam, a roller coaster of violence and an emotional bang all build to an abrupt climax that leaves the heart pounding.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Better order more than one copy of this thriller. Readers will be tearing the pages apart to find out what happens next as Vachss reaches new heights, and depths, in this third entry in his investigator Burke series. Again the hero's special morality draws him into a case involving the sleaziest sex factories in New York, darting from strip joints to massage parlors to a mysterious Ghost Van that kidnaps very young girls for kiddie-porn and snuff videos. Burke's unorthodox "family" of helpers are here, and new love interest Belle participates in some very steamy sex scenes. Violence laced with the bizarre, the super-cool, and wit, this novel certifies Vachss as a first-rate writer on crime, the underworld, and the pits of the human heart and soul. Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.