"Among writers of suspense, Andrew Vachss's work stands out for its substance, integrity, and absorbing readability. Safe House has all the distinctive Vachss virtues -- a seductive style, a thought-provoking story, and the creation of an utterly convincing world. I read it compulsively, and with great pleasure." --Richard North Patterson

Followers of Andrew Vachss are well acquainted with Burke, his gritty career criminal and outlaw private investigator who has appeared in more than ten novels. Cut from a similar mold as Richard Stark's Parker, with a place in his hard heart for the innocent and the unprotected, Burke is hard-core to an even more ruthless degree. Safe House is Vachss's latest installment involving the shadowy ex-con and man-for-hire, pitting him against a new strain of enemy -- stalkers. A crazed and irrational lot, stalkers range from the obsessed to the coolly calculating to the clinically insane. The terrifying stalkers in Safe House do all share one trait -- they are all extremely, stealthily dangerous.

Hercules, an old prison ally of Burke's, is in some trouble. Hired by an underground network that shelters stalker victims, he botched an assignment that led to the death of a stalker -- the wrong one. In order to save his friend, Burke has to infiltrate the safe house network, and in doing so makes a deal with Crystal Beth, the house boss, to get on the inside. Crystal Beth has a stalker of her own, an extortionist who threatens to sabotage the entire safe house network if Beth does not offer up a particular woman she is hiding.

Burke learns that the extortionist in question may very well be government issue, and that the stalker he is protecting is a member of a neo-Nazi faction planning terrorist activities. Given these somber details, Burke's survival instincts kick into high gear, and his disposition assumes a familiar, lethal glare. He has two missions: save Hercules and bring down the Nazi group. When it comes down to ensuring his own safety, and the safety of his "family-of-choice," no threat is considered idle. Burke's attention turns to the elimination of the predators that are the hardest to prey upon -- those who lead a life in stealth, perfecting the stalk.

Vachss has always been one of the best and most creative authors of the thriller genre, with characters that leap off the page and story lines that threaten to break the reader's heart (e.g., Blue Belle, LJ 10/1/88). But the present work, though basically well crafted, has only brief flashes of Vachss's fine talent. Burke befriends those involved in a women's shelter and finds rogue government agents and a neo-Nazi group that plans to blow up federal buildings. He saves the day with the help of his friends: mute Max, Chinese terror "Mama," genius Mole, "Baby Sister" Michelle, and, of course, his beloved mastiff, Pansy. But what is lacking here is the bite of Vachss's earlier works, the toughness and brutality that have won him so many fans. Buy this for diehards. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/97.]Alice DiNizo, Raritan P.L., N.J.

Categories:

• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
  
  
  • Mystery
    • Hard-Boiled