Rating: 
Summary: a revenge thriller you can't put down
Review: It's one thing to tell a good story; it's another to create a fictional world that's probably not as grotesque as the real world it attempts to capture. Who among us can't appreciate the thrill of a well-executed plan that avenges an unspeakable crime? Burke, the paranoid urban survivor, gets the job done as--we suspect--no one else could, and we get to go along for the ride. Spectacular details. A wonderful read.
Rating:
Summary: check yourself
Review: It's rare to see a review of a book where the reviewer doesn't even attept to disguise the fact that he or she doesn't need to read the book in order to have an opinion of the author. Somehow the book is not worth reading because the author wears an eye patch (which the reviewer is certain is a fake). I'm sure the reviewer understands that sometimes photos are printed as mirror images. An intelligent and endoskeletal reviewer, I'm sure, wouldn't bother to review a book he/she hasn't read, nor would they dismiss a book on the assumption that the author smokes or has intercourse with women (of whatever size).
Rating: 
Summary: average.com
Review: Let me preface this with the fact that I am a Vacchs fan. Vacch's persona and the eye patch and all that is intriguing. That said, Flood is a pretty good book. The problem is that the book loses steam toward the end. The climax is predictable, and the denoument betrays the protagonist's sensiblities. Burke is set up as so hard boiled that the end's sentimentality doesn't work, in my humble opinion. Max the Silent isn't well developed and comes off as corny at best. Flood and Burke and Pansy are great though. It's definitley worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: Power, Punch and Passion
Review: My first Andrew Vachss novel gripped hard and fast. His tight wording, ability to slip a quirky, snide comment in at the end of a paragraph, and nasty little character sketches created a murky underworld that was very fun to explore. In Flood, a warrior bent on revenge against a child murderer, Vachss creates a powerful portrait of an obsessed, fiery female that commands respect. Max the Silent looms large as an awesome force, and the nasty side of New York comes across loud and clear. This novel resonates with power, punch and passion, and was a delight to read (and re-read).
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: One of the first books that made me really want to read. He writes with simplicity and style. Vachss is as intense in real life as the characters in his books. I saw him when he came to my town a few years ago. He had an energy field around him like I've rarely seen. A very powerful and symbolic presence with a great and determined cause.
Rating: 
Summary: A dark universe
Review: The first book in Vachss's Burke series, Flood is a good tough-guy sort of mystery and is as hard-boiled as they come. Flood takes place in a sinister version of New York City, where everyone is crooked, no one seems to have both a first and last name and even the dogs are aggressive, if not vicious. Burke, the anti-heroic main character is not a very pleasant person except in relation to the sleazy characters he must face. In this story, he is hired by the woman Flood to find an elusive child-killer; along the way, he also must deal with other unsavory people. While good, this book is not quite great. In his first novel, Vachss shows some beginner's traits in his style, and his characters sometimes come off clown-like or cliched. Also, this is an unpleasant world, and no character really has redeeming values; this may be compelling, but it can also be a turn-off if overdone. In the end, I found this good enough that I will probably try another in the series, but I think I will wait a little while. Too much of this dark universe at one time could be depressing.
Rating:
Summary: A dark universe
Review: The first book in Vachss's Burke series, Flood is a good tough-guy sort of mystery and is as hard-boiled as they come. Flood takes place in a sinister version of New York City, where everyone is crooked, no one seems to have both a first and last name and even the dogs are aggressive, if not vicious. Burke, the anti-heroic main character is not a very pleasant person except in relation to the sleazy characters he must face. In this story, he is hired by the woman Flood to find an elusive child-killer; along the way, he also must deal with other unsavory people. While good, this book is not quite great. In his first novel, Vachss shows some beginner's traits in his style, and his characters sometimes come off clown-like or cliched. Also, this is an unpleasant world, and no character really has redeeming values; this may be compelling, but it can also be a turn-off if overdone. In the end, I found this good enough that I will probably try another in the series, but I think I will wait a little while. Too much of this dark universe at one time could be depressing.
Rating:
Summary: Just the Beginning...
Review: The reader who picks up Flood enters a world very different from that of the 6 o'clock news. Mr. Vachss gets beneath that grit and takes you on a journey behind the scenes. Once you read this book, you hunger for more. Burke is that "guy" that everyone wants to come along and "fix" the wrongs of this society. Start here and don't look back!
Rating: 
Summary: Amateurish crime fiction
Review: There seem to be a lot of enthusiastic Vachss fans out there. After reading this book, I am not one of them. Far more than most novels, this one offers so many inconsistencies, contradictions, and amateurish mistakes that it falls to the bottom of the second rate category. Vachss' claim to fame is writing about the seamy underworld, and some people might be impressed, but his underworld is unconvincing, and it's hard to enjoy a novel when it continuously insults your intelligence. Too many of the details don't fit or are just plain wrong. In chapter one Burke says he doesn't care why a client wants to hire him, but a few pages later he insists that it's very important. One minute Burke is living close to poverty, the next he is throwing around money on completely unnecessary things like renting a room for $100 just to have a conversation with a prostitute. He uses a transsexual to act the role of his secretary on the telephone, even though a transsexual man has the voice of a man. He refers to having sex "a few dozen times" in one night. A criminal plea bargains his way out of a murder charge and goes free (any crime fiction reader knows over the age of fifteen knows this doesn't happen). Burke engages in elaborate gesture conversations with a deaf-mute, who we later learn can read lips perfectly. A mercenary recruiter says he doesn't need to know the name of a prospective recruit, but that the recruit does need to bring his passport with him and show it. There are many more, and they come in various shades of stupid. Don't buy what the publishers tell you about this book.
Rating:
Summary: AN EXCEPTIONAL CRIME NOVEL ... perhaps not for everyone
Review: There seems to be an abundance of crime/mystery novels on the market these days which feature protagonists who never age, never change, and never react with anything even remotely resembling real emotions to the violent situations in which they find themselves. These "heroes" do, however, all seem to be blessed with the same late-night-talk-show-host type of cleverness, which they employ effusively as they move from one fairly predictable adventure to another. If you are a fan of such books you may have a problem with FLOOD and indeed with all of Andrew Vachss' books. In FLOOD, the first book in his long-running "Burke" series, Mr. Vachss creates for us a protagonist who not only ages and changes, but actually suffers from such human frailities as depression, self-doubt, and rage ... he even occasionally makes mistakes and then has to deal with the consequences of those errors. FLOOD follows Burke on his investigation of a child abduction/homicide. The horrors that Burke uncovers during this investigation are by and large common knowledge to the vast majority of the public today. However, when FLOOD was published in 1985 most of the public as well as the press were ignorant of the dangers confronting America's children ... the term "predatory pedophile" was not part of the nation's vocabulary and "Amber Alert" was not even an idea. As bleak as its subject matter is, there is considerable humor in FLOOD, but it tends to come at the reader from unexpected directions and is always tightly bound to the author's initimate knowledge of the unique environments through which his characters move. The language in FLOOD has the tone and feel of the great crime writing of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, yet remains quite modern and totally original at the same time. So, if you are looking for a crime novel that cuts significantly deeper than the epidermal layer of social/political/cultural issues, I can unequivocally recommend FLOOD or, for that matter, any of Andrew Vachss' books. On the other hand, if you are entertained by more middle-of-the-road crime fiction, where the violence is predictable and sanitized, the moral issues clearly delineated, and the heroes, while very glib and fashionably irreverent, always behave heroically, you certainly have plenty of other "mysteries" to choose from.
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