Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Mans Heart of Darkness
Review: Shella was the first novel by Andrew Vachss I read. Later I learned he was a lawyer and a champion of abused children, when I was seeking the source of the intense hold this book held over me. Mr. Vachss writes with the intensity of a sledge hammer through a plate glass window. He dares you to turn away from the horrors of life that somewhere, deep past the place where nightmares fear to tread, you always knew were there. In his characters Ghost and Shella, we see the victims of an evil polite society many times refuses to believe exists violently transformed into a shadow of the evil which created them. If this is all there was, we'd have the makings of any Hollywood action film. But what kept me reading was, at the core of his main characters, there lies a frail vestige of humanity. Ghost's search for his old partner seems only a damaged attempt to re-establish the only semblance of a family he ever had, and he goes about it the only way he knows how.
I strongly recommend Shella to anyone interested in crime fiction, mystery novels, or horror, as it has elements of each, with this admonition: after you've read it, nothing will seem the same again
Rating: 
Summary: as bare as unfinished furniture
Review: The Village Voice review excerpt, straight from the back of the novel, reads: "A noir archetype as bare as unfinished furniture. The plot...has been sanded down into a taut monofilament... The prose in Shella is boiled to the bone." At first, after reading this novel (in about 3 hours), I thought "Hell, anybody can get pretty reviews to paste on the back of their book," and then I read it again (the review, not the novel) and decided that "as bare as unfinished furniture" wasn't really much of a compliment, after all. As exciting as unfinished furniture. Vachss has no real depth.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended.
Review: This is certainly one of the finest books that I have ever read. Mr. Vachss takes the reader to places not only have we not been to, but in many cases places that we did not know even exist. He writes like a poet, lyrical and haunting. A dark book that has love at the core. Not the love that you read about or watch on TV but a love that people feel who have been disenfranchised and beaten down and not shown love themselves. Great Book. I also recommend any book in the Burke series.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible writing.
Review: This is the greatest book I've ever read. The first time I read this book I literally couldn't put it down. The writing style is like a punch to the face. I cried at the end. I've since read it several more times. I've never been able to stop in the middle without reading it all the way through. I still cry at the end.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible writing.
Review: This is the greatest book I've ever read. The first time I read this book I literally couldn't put it down. The writing style is like a punch to the face. I cried at the end. I've since read it several more times. I've never been able to stop in the middle without reading it all the way through. I still cry at the end.
Rating:
Summary: Crisp prose. Bizarre, uncongenial subject adroitly managed
Review: This man can write. I'm surprised to find most of his stuff only makes it to hardback or trade printings. His protagonist is interesting, the handling adept. Mr Vachss continues his war on child abuse
Rating: 
Summary: A disturbing nightmare.
Review: This story, about a soulless man's obsessive search for the woman he loves, is a dark, disturbing nightmare of a book. It shows in graphic detail what this world can do to those unfortunate lost children crushed by the cruelty of the world. Recommended for readers with steely nerves.
Rating:
Summary: A disturbing nightmare.
Review: This story, about a soulless man's obsessive search for the woman he loves, is a dark, disturbing nightmare of a book. It shows in graphic detail what this world can do to those unfortunate lost children crushed by the cruelty of the world. Recommended for readers with steely nerves.
Rating:
Summary: dark, stylish, fantastic and utterly human
Review: Vachss is an amazing writer. He writes about things that most of us will never see, in fact, most of us pray that we will never see the types of things he writes about. He creates characters that are so unbelievingly flawed that we cling to every printed word and sigh in disbelief. If you are looking for something to keep you up at night or something to send a shock to your brainstem, then Vachhs' Shella is for you.
Rating:
Summary: The closest you'll ever get to being a sociopath.
Review: Vachss takes a break from the Burke series to put us in
the mind of Ghost, product of the state foster homes and
prison system. Ghost knows something about him is broken,
and when he meets Shella, she fills the emptiness inside.
His quest to find her again will send him lurking through
the darkest pits of the human soul before he receives his
redemption. Highest recommendation.
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