Down here: Strega, Blue Belle, Hard candy

By Andrew Vachss

Book Overview

For years Burke has harbored an outlaw's hard love for Wolfe, the beautiful, driven former sex-crimes prosecutor who was fired for refusing to "go along to get along." So when Wolfe is arrested for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965002438
• ISBN13: 9780965002431
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Quality Paperback Book Club
• Length: 855 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Strega, Blue Belle, and Hard Candy in one handy package.

The Burke series of novels by Andrew Vachss comprises 18 books ([...]), of which these three titles are numbers 2, 3 and 4. For detailed reviews, look to the many good reviews of "Strega", "Blue Belle" and "Hard Candy" on their respective pages. They were originally published in 1987 - 1989 following the success of the series opener "Flood" in 1985. Note that the first five in the series are titled with the name of the woman with whom Burke is involved at the time: Stega is another survivor of a difficult childhood like Burke. Blue Belle is the standup girl who leaves a big hole in his heart for many years afterwards. Candy may be as hard as the character Wesley who reappears out of Burke's past and is given his fullest treatment outside of the 1973 prequel "A Bomb Built in Hell" (available as pdf download: [...]). Fiction this biting could only be based on some inner truth. This sturdy trade size paperback (Quality Paperback Book Club, 2000) collects what turns out to be a trilogy within the larger series, as the events and characters of the three books are related and given new perspective and depth. Those who have read most of the whole series remark that the first five or six are the strongest and best written, with a few individual standouts in the later dozen. I tend to agree and was glad to get this core trilogy in one handy volume. This trilogy makes an excellent introduction to the remarkable crew with whom Burke works and breathes his noirish New York environment. You couldn't do better than to begin reading Vachss here, or to pick up some background if you've read some of the later novels (which is where I started, with a copy of "Blossom" [#5] discovered at a library book sale; not to worry as the whole series is still circulating, but these three are keepers). A note on the title for this three-in-one volume, "Down Here" was recycled in 2004 for the 15th book in the series, and is not to be confused with it. Finally, on Vachss' web site you'll find excerpts from the novels, his other books, short stories, dog photos and stories, Burke's playlists, as well as the serious non-fiction on which the events depicted in the fiction are based. ([...])