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acaprice20's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
A woman named Flood shows up at Burke's office and hires him to find a child molester calling himself the Cobra so she can kill him with her bare hands. Can Burke navigate the cesspools of New York and bring in the Cobra?
You know a crime book is going to be good when the author has an eye patch. I've been aware of Andrew Vachss for a long time. Partly because of his work as a lawyer but mostly because Joe Lansdale based his Veil character on him. Does Flood live up to my eye patch-fueled expectations? You bet your ass!
Vachss knows how to write a hard boiled crime book like nobody's business. Burke is far from the detective cliche, the child of a broken home who grew up in orphanages and detention centers, an uber-paranoid guy bent on beating the system, getting by on various scams in addition to his detective work. The bad guys of the story are so much worse than Burke that they make him look like an angel by comparison. Then again, that's not hard when the baddies are pimps and/or pedophiles. Goldor and the Cobra are both despicable and you can't wait for them to get what they have coming.
The supporting cast was interesting. You have the deaf mute Max the Silent, the Prof, the Mole, Mama, quite a memorable cast. Like in Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series, New York is almost a character itself. Flood, the title character, is pretty believable for a kung fu master consumed with a desire for revenge.
Burke isn't a super-hero like some detectives. He's scared, not all that tough, and doesn't go in with guns blazing. He's a survivor, though.
The thing docking Flood a star? The ending involving the pimp seemed forced. I just didn't buy her relationship with Burke. Based on their backgrounds, I just didn't buy that they'd end up in the sack so fast. Other than that, I've got no complaints.
You know a crime book is going to be good when the author has an eye patch. I've been aware of Andrew Vachss for a long time. Partly because of his work as a lawyer but mostly because Joe Lansdale based his Veil character on him. Does Flood live up to my eye patch-fueled expectations? You bet your ass!
Vachss knows how to write a hard boiled crime book like nobody's business. Burke is far from the detective cliche, the child of a broken home who grew up in orphanages and detention centers, an uber-paranoid guy bent on beating the system, getting by on various scams in addition to his detective work. The bad guys of the story are so much worse than Burke that they make him look like an angel by comparison. Then again, that's not hard when the baddies are pimps and/or pedophiles. Goldor and the Cobra are both despicable and you can't wait for them to get what they have coming.
The supporting cast was interesting. You have the deaf mute Max the Silent, the Prof, the Mole, Mama, quite a memorable cast. Like in Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series, New York is almost a character itself. Flood, the title character, is pretty believable for a kung fu master consumed with a desire for revenge.
Burke isn't a super-hero like some detectives. He's scared, not all that tough, and doesn't go in with guns blazing. He's a survivor, though.
The thing docking Flood a star? The ending involving the pimp seemed forced. I just didn't buy her relationship with Burke. Based on their backgrounds, I just didn't buy that they'd end up in the sack so fast. Other than that, I've got no complaints.
rocketiza's review against another edition
1.0
I started in the middle of this novel series, and was extremely disappointed to find this first book almost nothing like I previously had read.
This was full of cliches and overly elaborate plots. There were unnecessary non-essential tidbits or side stories thrown in again and again. And the prose was rambling rather than the clean, short lines of his other novels.
No matter how much you like Vachss and the Burke series, I highly recommend skipping this one and starting later when the author's style is developed, and story telling much improved.
This was full of cliches and overly elaborate plots. There were unnecessary non-essential tidbits or side stories thrown in again and again. And the prose was rambling rather than the clean, short lines of his other novels.
No matter how much you like Vachss and the Burke series, I highly recommend skipping this one and starting later when the author's style is developed, and story telling much improved.
alar's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
eb00kie's review against another edition
This book was written with the apparent intention of drawing attention to child abuse, and one is led to infer that it was only published after such things had seeped into public knowledge. Thus, it was dated even before it was published.
So, to quote "only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she were" unoriginal; "and being no other but as she is, I do not like her."
So, to quote "only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she were" unoriginal; "and being no other but as she is, I do not like her."
jimmypat's review against another edition
1.0
I felt adequately prepared to delve into the type of subject matter that Vachss is known for, but I was unprepared for how poorly written this novel would be. Flood is an overwritten, meandering, and surprisingly juvenile novel (felt like a low-rent Batman comic book, complete with bizarre gadgets and informants devoted to our hero for no apparent reason).
This book establishes a pretty clear routine for Burke:
1. Get home, let the dog out to crap on the roof of the building.
2. Use the phone he shares with the hippies downstairs to contact an informant for an unapparent reason, but first make sure that the hippies are not on the line.
3. Drive his decked out Plymouth to a secret, undisclosed location where he can get another car to go to another secret location to meet with his informant.
4. Meet the informant and discuss nothing that drives the novel forward.
5. Return home to let the dog crap on the roof.
You may think I am joking, but this series of events is repeated ad nauseam (well, at least 20 times), driving the reader absolutely mad and ultimately unwilling to invest any more time in reading this garbage.
This book establishes a pretty clear routine for Burke:
1. Get home, let the dog out to crap on the roof of the building.
2. Use the phone he shares with the hippies downstairs to contact an informant for an unapparent reason, but first make sure that the hippies are not on the line.
3. Drive his decked out Plymouth to a secret, undisclosed location where he can get another car to go to another secret location to meet with his informant.
4. Meet the informant and discuss nothing that drives the novel forward.
5. Return home to let the dog crap on the roof.
You may think I am joking, but this series of events is repeated ad nauseam (well, at least 20 times), driving the reader absolutely mad and ultimately unwilling to invest any more time in reading this garbage.
vasilas's review against another edition
I wanted to try it because I don’t usually read this sort of thing but I felt slightly bored and constantly confused by the use of slang I don’t know about. Also I can’t put up with this much casual misogyny unless there is a good narrative reason and there didn’t seem to be one
bibliophilelinda's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, what a read! Especially when you consider the fact that Vachss wrote this novel in the early 80's and had difficulty getting published because of the material. The story centers around a PI named Burke, who primarily takes on cases involving child abuse, pedophilia, prostitution and other social malignancies "good" people would rather not chat about. Burke is hired by a woman calling herself Flood to track down a man who preyed upon and killed her best friends' child. They team up to scour the underworld for this maggot and end up uncovering more larvae in the process. A great read, but what makes this such a chilling story is that Vachss spent years witnessing these horrors, prosecuting these criminals, and trying to reform the judicial system to rid society of this scum - not just to fruitlessly "rehabilitate" them.