HARD CANDY

by Andrew Vachss ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 22, 1989

. . .but with a gooey center. Vachss' fourth novel featuring Burke has the ""outlaw"" p.i. sweating over his usual peeves--lost love, the Mob, child prostitution--but with little of the original, tangy action that distinguished Food, Bluebelle, or even Strega. Not at first, though. Vachss, in prose now st) staccato as to be almost parodic, opens with a revenge scene as sudden and savage as anything Mickey Spillane ever tossed on paper: Burke, backed by his usual nether crew of Michelle the transvestite, Max the Silent, Mole, and the Prophet, lures to New York and then shoots down the incest-forcing father of his late, lamented love, Bluebelle. But that killing doesn't chase away Bluebelle's shadows--including an impotence that Burke can't shake (despite the ministrations of two beautiful women) until after he pantomimes his problem with deaf Max (""I pointed at my chest. At my heart. Stiffened the forefinger. Approached the opening in my fist. The forefinger went limp""). Also part of Bluebelle's legacy: heat from Burke's boyhood idol Wesley, now a stone killer, and from the Mob and the cops--all of whom suspect Burke of having turned into a hired gun. Burke's efforts to clear his name are complicated by the appearance of the Candy of the title, his lover when he and she ran teen-age-wild. Candy, now a whore, asks Burke to get her daughter back from a seeming religious cult-run by a man who's walking right into Wesley's cross-hairs. And other old loves haunt Burke: Strega makes a sexy reappearance, and Flood tugs at his heart. It's all almost too much for a guy to bear, but with help from his pals--and a few coldblooded murders--Burke bounces back to his old wrathful self. The first in the series to read like a series entry: familiar, mostly tired if tough stuff that works only in flashes. Like his similarly one-name colleague Spenser (whose weakness for sentimental self-examination he's also aping), Burke's just re-treading lukewarm water for now.

Pub Date: June 22, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION