Safe House [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Vachss' hero Burke is as much an urban terrorist as a professional criminal, dedicated to smashing away at the world of sexual abuse and making a profit in the process; he and his dedicated crew of driven men and women are not entirely like any other characters in crime fiction...In Safe House, Burke is persuaded by two of his lovers to involve himself in the affairs of a woman whose Nazi ex-boyfriend wants to snatch their child and disappear into the Master Race underground--things are not that simple, because the unpleasant Lothar is playing a complicated game in which he has powerful protectors. Vachss writes with a crystalline intensity that at times almost becomes too much to believe in or bear; at his best, he captures the high adrenaline of people on the street and on the edge as well as far more distinguished writers. The touches of Hollywood and of melodrama here are part of his attempt to make us see that these things matter; Vachss is a passionate crusader whose thrillers are a fierce argument for righteous vigilantism as well as an impressively, and worryingly, enjoyable read. --Roz Kaveney -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Safe House, the latest in Andrew Vachss's series of Burke novels, begins when Burke's "brother," Hercules, is paid to scare off a neo-nazi stalker and accidentally kills the wrong guy. Burke finds himself unwittingly drawn into a world of white supremacists, stalkers, and safe house networks. What ensues is an intense rush to cover Hercules' tracks and, at the same time, bring down a New York City white supremacy ring.

Safe House offers up Vachss's repertoire of repeat characters. The most fascinating are Burke's prison "family," the Prof, Max the silent, the Mole, Michelle, Clarence, Mama, and, of course, Burke himself, who is as hard-edged as ever. The family's willingness to help one another, even die for one another, is the emotional string that ties the books together. There are also two new female characters, Vyra, the affluent Jewish housewife and Crystal Beth, half Inuit, half Irish safe house madam. Though not as believable as their male counterparts, Vyra and Crystal Beth have powerful secrets of their own and add a soft, human element to the story.

Like other Vachss novels, Safe House embraces the dirty, grim life of the ex-con for hire. The most compelling aspect of Safe House is Vachss's no-holds-barred writing style. He spares nobody's feeling and minces no words in this rough, gritty and often painfully raw crime story. --Mara Friedman -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Herk, a member of ex-con Burke's "family" --a close-knit group of thieves, thugs, and other unlawful types--is set up for a shakedown that turns into a killing, and Burke's not about to let him go down for the crime. Burke tracks the hire back to a safe house for victims of stalking. One of the residents was being stalked by a neo-Nazi organizer, and Herk was hired to scare him off. But Herk hits the wrong guy, leaving Burke two goals: save Herk, and put the Nazi out of action. Vachss' Burke novels may be the darkest noir in the genre. Burke and his Fagin's army of social misfits have their hearts in the right place when they're helping the victims of stalkers and sexual deviants, but they have no mercy when dealing with the perpetrators of such acts. Their world is unrelentingly dark, virtually devoid of humor, and populated almost exclusively by victims and victimizers. Burke has a loyal cadre of readers who relish their sojourns into the darkness, and this new book won't disappoint. Wes Lukowsky -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Child-abuse specialist Burke expands his righteous field of operations--his one-man harrowing of our modern cityscape--to cover an Aryan supremacist network of terrorists. Not by design, of course. Burke and his ragtag band of urban avengers--Clarence, the Prof, the Mole, Max the Silent--start off much closer to their usual turf, on a self-ordained mission to take down domestic abusers who've turned into stalkers of their terrified women. Their eye-for-an-eye campaign leads them to Crystal Beth, who runs a shelter for women who have nowhere else to go. Vachss (False Allegations, 1996, etc.) establishes the safe house's credentials by admitting testimony from its desperate clients: the rape victim whose husband kept raping her ``because I owed him''; the S/M player whose latest playmate refused to quit the game; the cyber-chump who was seduced by a predator who disseminated a falsely heroic image of himself over the Internet; the porn star whose most reverential fan had turned into an obsessive erotomaniac. But no story is more heartrending than that of hugely pregnant Marla, whose white-supremacist husband Lothar Bucholtz (born Larry Bretton, a name he jettisoned because it sounded too Jewish) is waiting for her to deliver the son he's already named Gerhardt so that he can spirit him off to his coven of neo-Nazis. When Burke and Co. try to move against Lothar, they run up against a brick wall named Pryce, who tells them Lothar can't be touched. It doesn't take long for Burke to work out the reason why: Lothar is the designated informant who's going to bring down his pack of bombing buddies, and custody of Gerhardt, along with immunity for his earlier peccadilloes, is part of the price the US government has included in his severance package. A lesser crew of vigilantes would be stymied at this point, but the scheme Burke hatches to take Lothar down is a thing of beauty. Think of a lesser James Bond adventure, minus the high-tech gadgetry and the rules. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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.
-?Alice DiNizo, Raritan P.L.,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

"Andrew Vachss' Romane stehen in der Tradition der sozialkritischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, vergleichbar einem Dickens und Defoe ebenso wie einem Hammett und Chandler." (Martha Grimes)
"Andrew Vachss, ein Frontkämpfer entlang der grauenhaften Abgründe menschlichen Tuns." (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Durch Doppelagenten staatlicher Geheimdienste wird Burke, der illusionslose Einzelkämpfer, in die Höhle des Löwen gezwungen. Crystal Beth, neu aufgenommen in den engsten Kreis der Vertrauten, wird vom Chef der Nazi-Milizen mit dem Tode bedroht. Burke und seine Freunde müssen schnell und lautlos handeln, um Crystal Beth und die Stadt New York vor dem sicheren Untergang zu retten. "Andrew Vachss' Romane stehen in der Tradition der sozialkritischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, vergleichbar einem Dickens und Defoe ebenso wie einem Hammett und Chandler." Martha Grimes "Andrew Vachss, ein Frontkämpfer entlang der grauenhaften Abgründe menschlichen Tuns." Süddeutsche Zeitung.

"Vyra verrenkte sich schnurrend, um das fahle Nachmittagslicht einzufangen, das durch die weißen Gardinen des Hotelzimmerfensters in downtown Manhattan fiel. Sie war nackt bis auf hauchdünne Nylonstrümpfe und sonnengelbe Stöckelschuhe mit schwarzen Knöchelriemchen. Einen Fuß auf dem Stuhl, den sie vom Schreibtisch herübergezogen hatte, posierte sie und fixierte mich über eine Schulter. Das weizenblonde Haar fiel glatt über ihren Rücken. Als sie sich langsam mir zuwandte, wurden ihre enormen Brüste sichtbar, die im Kontrast zu ihrem ansonsten schlanken, fast knabenhaften Körper noch riesiger wirkten. Sie hob die Hände hoch über den Kopf und schaute nach unten."Sind die nicht einfach perfekt?" fragte sie."Absolut", versicherte ich."Sie sind so schön, ich würde sie nicht gern ausziehen.""Sie sind bestimmt nicht im Weg", sagte ich. Für Vyra ist eine Modenschau das Vorspiel. Aber sie macht das wieder wett - zwei Zigaretten ist alles an Nachspiel, wozu sie je Zeit hat ... Ich kenne V yra seit Jahren - ich bin nicht der einzige Schlüssel, der je in ihr Schloß gepaßt hätte. Aber mein Timing war gut. Ihr Mann hatte einen Job, der beaucoup Kohle einbrachte. Oder seine Familie hatte ihm ordentlich was hinterlassen, ich konnte es mir nie merken. Vyra wechselte ihre Geschichten ungefähr so oft wie ihre Schuhe, aber sie liebte beides. Über ihren Mann wußte ich im Grunde nur, daß er diese mordsmäßigen, überhaupt nicht zu ihrem Körper passenden Brüste anbetete. Nur deshalb behielt sie sie, sagte Vyra, allein ihm zuliebe. Sie taten ihrer zierlichen Figur nicht gut, verursachten ihr Rückenschmerzen. Der schwere bügelverstärkte BH, den sie tragen mußte, hinterließ tiefe Spuren in ihrer hellen Haut. Ihr Körper sah aus wie eine Karikatur, gemalt von einem Fetischisten. Vyra hat ein großes, einsames Herz. Und die tiefe innere Leere eines Borderliners. Wenn sie sich langweilt, geht sie einkaufen. Und engagiert sich ehrenamtlich bei allen möglichen Organisationen ..."