Burke Does the Right Thing - for the Wrong Reasons
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Author: Andrew Vachss
Title: Terminal Genre: thriller In the crystalline world of Burke and his brethren, there is naught between black and white. All is eternally us against them, good against evil, right against wrong. And Burke and his "sisters" and "brothers" will always be the us, the good, the right. It makes no matter, none whatsoever, that they are ever on the wrong side of the legal system, for theirs is the moral pathway. Even if they have to lie, steal, cheat, and kill to follow their chosen path: it is the lot of Burke's "family of choice" to forever do the wrong thing for the right reason. What a load of crap. Andrew Vachss' long-running Burke series (the count is somewhere in the upper teens these days) continues in 2007's Terminal, following pretty much the usual pattern for the genre: A dying ex-con has been referred to Burke for help with a "special" case. A "good guy" - meaning a robber, murderer, mugger, drug dealer, whatever; but one who never ratted out his partners - by the cellblock nickname of "Claw" has a proposition. He knows a guy who knows a secret, a secret the second guy thinks could easily be parlayed into several million dollars given the "proper resources." Those resources, it appears, are precisely what Burke and family have to offer. All of which would mean nothing to Burke, of course, were the secret not a rape-tinged murder of a thirteen-year-old girl by three only slightly older boys... some thirty years ago. Since abuse of a child is involved, Burke et al. are of course gonna be involved. Oh, and the three? they're filthy rich now: more's the impetus. Burke calls in some favors, gets some favors called in on himself, puts together a couple of strike teams to do a couple of jobs related to those favors (all, to be sure, involving the "removal" of people who are in some way guilty of abusing children, even if quite indirectly). Then he and his get down to business: the "family," it appears, are surely as organized, disciplined, and professional as any team of Army Rangers or Navy SEALs. Any resource or skill one might need to put together a long con, a family member can and will provide: disguises, computer hacking, electronic surveillance, covering fire, or muscle - especially the muscle part, with one member who's Chuck Norris crossed with Bruce Lee combined with Steven Seagal. The con goes down exactly as you'd expect. Exactly... Andrew Vachss is a man who supports admirable causes; particularly in his role as a one-man campaign against the abuse of both children and animals. He might also be admirable as an author, but Terminal, sadly, lacks any particular evidence of that skill. It is one thing to espouse a favorite cause in one's writing; it is another thing entirely to give one's plot over entirely to that cause. One need not have read a single Burke novel before Terminal to realize that Vachss is concerned, even obsessed, with child abuse; so much so, in fact, that every last villain in his latest book is a child abuser. Yes: they are nasty, evil people. No: it's not necessary for Vachss' characters to be tripping over predatory freakazoids at every juncture. Yes: they deserve to be punished. No: they don't necessarily deserve to be assassinated on sight. Putting it mildly, Terminal's plot (what there is of one) serves solely to propel Burke and his little coterie from one situation in which he can "do the wrong thing for the right reason" to another situation in which he can repeat that sequence. It is, after all, how he gets to rid the world of another sexual predator every couple of chapters. The character of Burke is lauded in some circles for his brand of vigilante justice. Again: no argument with his choice of targets. However, if you ask me, the guy's symbolic of something that's every bit as repugnant as the cancer his creator would excise. He's unremittingly violent, cares not a whit for anything but his precious "family," and kills at the drop of a clue - and not necessarily a solid clue, either. Vachss' book may start out as fiction, but it quickly veers into the world of sermonizing and demonizing and pretty much stays there. Do the right thing for the right reason. Skip this book. all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
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