The leader of a vicious white-supremacist prison gang is dying of cancer. His last hope is an experimental treatment in Switzerland. To pay for it, he needs to blackmail three rich men whom he knows raped and murdered a young girl 30 years ago.
To pull it off, he needs the help of a career criminal named Burke, a veteran of 16 other darkly violent crime novels by Andrew Vachss.
The murder at the heart of Vachss' new book, "Terminal," vaguely resembles the infamous Connecticut case of Martha Moxley, but the plot unfolds much differently.
Vachss is a lawyer to sues child abusers on behalf of their victims and lobbies tirelessly for stronger child-protection laws and services. The income from his novels helps support his cause. His fictional alter ego, Burke, fights the same enemies in a more direct way. In each book, he and his loyal cadre of underworld friends entrap and usually kill a monster who abuses children.
Burke and his pals have been with us for more than 20 years, more than long enough to have developed rich and intricate histories. Vachss' longtime fans know this history, and it enriches the experience of reading "Terminal."
New readers, however, might find much of the book bewildering. Why does Burke treat a Chinese restaurant owner named Mamma and an aging ex-con known as the Professor with such deference⢠Why doesn't Max the Silent speak⢠Why is everyone afraid to speak Wesley's name even though he has been dead for years?
Republicans, as well as those who prefer their crime novels to be politics-free zones, should be forewarned that Vachss has included a lengthy anti-Bush rant.
Still, the book is well plotted, and Vachss' prose is as taut and street-wise as ever, drawing his readers again into an evil underworld that is at once impossible to look away from and horrible to behold. Additional Information:
'Terminal'
Author: Andrew Vachss
Publisher: Pantheon, $25.95, 244 pages
