Talk Back

[shaw]

Hard Boiled Crime Novels:

When they are excellent: They are good.
When they are good: They are good.
When they are mediocre: They are good.

I'm not a real connoisseur of the genre... Hard boiled crime novels to me are like 18th century histories written in Latin are to Eisworth - light diversionary reading meant for a bit of relaxation.

This one was in the mediocre camp.

Burke is an abuse survivor who has spent his life in foster homes and prisons, and now is a kind of mercenary who hangs out with his "family" who are all people outside society who have evocative one-word nicknames. A serial killer is out killing "fag-bashers" and a consortium of gay people hire Burke to find the guy so they can help him evade capture by the police, a feat the killer seems to be doing just fine without their help. There is a hot lesbian who wants to seduce Burke, even though she is hot and a lesbian, and there is an erotic witch subtly named Strega who wants to seduce Burke, and there is much danger and shooting and making of calls on payphones that say "Meet me at the usual time at the place where we last exchanged an item."

There was a story-within-the-story of a kidnapping that was truly gripping and horrifying. So I know that Vachss CAN write when he wants to. It was amazing.

There was a "cyber" component to his investigation, and here is where the book got dated. We have to hear a genius hacker giving the reader - sorry, Burke - exposition on what a "home page" is. And then the actual stuff that computers can and can't do is very silly. At one point the killer sends a message that is in a particular shade of blue so it CAN'T be photographed from the screen or recorded in ANY WAY. Burke gets to read it (because if there is anyone else in the room, the killer will know, because he is good at programming computers to send special message) and then it will disappear and be unrecoverable.

The ending was so ridiculous that my disbelief came crashing through my brain like Reality does when a Randian gets outsourced. It was awful. Up until the ending, I thought that this was a fine, mediocre, hard-boiled crime novel. After the ending, I thought, "wow... they can be Bad."

[galactic_dev]

My favorite book in this genre (a genre I don't generally appreciate) is American Tabloid by James Ellroy.