----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Robison" <
zspider@gte.net>
> I liked his earlier Burke books but after a while
the propaganda element
> started to
> bore me and his FALSE ALLEGATIONS was pathetic. I
gave him another go
> with SAFE HOUSE which was better but still only
mediocre. I've read
nothing
> by
> him since then. Try one of the Burke's before 1995,
such as FLOOD, BLUE
> BELLE, BLOSSOM, STREGA, HARD CANDY, or SACRIFICE.
The earlier
> the better.
I'd agree that the early ones are less didactic. Whether
Vachss swings to the right or left (and only his intimates
and tailor know that), whether his characters are no more
than cartoons, whether he writes bad sex (there's one novel
[BLUE BELLE?] where there's no sex at all because Burke is
impotent - both brave and ironic, I thought, making the hard
man soft), I believe that Vachss has written some of the
cleanest prose around. Perhaps it has to be, given his
subject matter.
Al
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