William wrote:
"But I always found something false about him and not just in
style.
[Vachss] gave me the heebie-jeebies but it wasn't the
content, it was the package."
That certainly captures how I feel about his Burke books. In
fact, I'd say what you say about Bruen's series, that they
are often said to be something different and more original
than they are, applies to the Burke books. I didn't find them
(based on the first and half of the second) dark and edgy, I
found them unintentional parodies of dark and edgy. I
couldn't take his constant declarations of lonerdom when he
had a well established surrogate family, got very tired of
repeated descriptions of how he entered his rooms and how
well trained his dog was. I just thought he needed a good
editor to trim him down. Which is why Shella amazed me even
more, not just for how good it was, but also how tight it
was. Same with his short stories, and I'm not much of a short
story guy.
Mark
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