Reviews

Blossom by Andrew Vachss

dantastic's review against another edition

4.0

Burke leaves the Big Apple behind to help a former cellmate in a small town in Indiana. Virgil, the cellmate, has a nephew that's been accused of gunning down couples at a local lovers' lane. Can Burke figure out who the real killer is before he strikes again? And what about the mysterious Blossom who's tugging at Burke's heartstrings?

This Burke book was one of my favorites so far. Burke does a lot more detective work than usual and Vachss doesn't rely on the usual supporting cast. While the Prof has a role and the Mole makes an appearance, this one is mostly Burke and some new supporting characters. Burke's method of tracking down and entrapping the killer was well done and fairly novel. We got a few more glimpses into Burke's dark past. The plot moved fairly quickly and there was no padding. Virgil and Burke helping Lloyd learn how to be a man was probably my favorite part.

Any complaints? Not really except that Burke and his world view are so bleak I feel like reading some Jim Thompson afterwords to cheer myself up. Blossom is my Burke top two and is definitely worth a read.

sshouse's review against another edition

A pandemic reread. Not as good as I remember and DNF on this go.

rocketiza's review against another edition

2.0

Ugh. It's like these books are written by a 12 year old boy. The protagonist's tough guy bravado is so overdone its laughable. There's ton of things crammed in you can tell that the author thought sounded cool, but then over explains to the point where it's tiresome.

rbriese7's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

samtee222's review

2.0

The book was okay. The chapters in this one were very short which for reasons unknown to me, I tend to be able to get through books like that quicker. What I really didn't like about the book was the fact that it was written in short choppy sentences. It could have used a lot more detail. I had a lot of difficulty picturing any scene of the book in my head and it changed scenes so often and suddenly it was a little hard to keep up. Another problem that I had with the book was the fact that it ended so quickly, the book built and built and built to the killer and when the Author finally got to him and his capture it came to an end so quickly you was left going "What happened?". It felt as if he just was in a hurry to make it end, like I do with chores. Also I would have liked to seen more murders and more detail on them, like what the victims looked like, where they were shot stuff like that. Like I said before it could have used a lot more detail all around, characters, plot, climax, conclusion everything. It all boils down to the fact that there is just not enough detail in the book to make it 3 star worthy or higher.

Characters

Blossom, was a whore no and's, if's or but's about it. As a waitress she acts all sweet and innocent but once you see the real her, behind closed doors so to speak, she's a freaking whore. And I thought that one waitress was bad.

Virgil, scared me. He's been in prison for murder and he knows stuff, stuff that shouldn't be known.

Prof, he's a very confusing man. He was always talking in rhyme without any reason. It was weird.

Burke, he's a badass hero who walks around acting like he's not.

And there was another guy, Wesley, he was mentioned a lot and every time he was I pictured the guy West from "Common Law" (If you have never seen it, you won't understand.) I would have liked to have seen more of him

but he's dead so that's wasn't going to happen.

.

buttonsbeadslace's review

4.0

I don't have quite as many feelings about this as I did when I first read it, but it's still a great book.