Rating: 
Summary: Well written story about a bleak world.
Review: Vachss writing is spare and brutally to the point (no Anne Rice syndrome here). The world he writes about is bleak, devasting and brutal. In Shella he delves into the world of a young boy abandoned at places where he lived with fear and the constant threat of abuse and grew up to be a cold-hearted, brutal killer for hire who is known as Ghost. Only Shella, a street toughened dancer, ever saw beneath the hard shell. They are separated when Ghost is thrown in jail and now that he's out his one goal is to find Shella.
This is an interesting look into the life of a killer. How cold-heartedly it happens out of necessity and survival. The book is bleak (have I said that already?) and disturbing. This was a difficult to put down book but it's not one I'd like to revisit due its complete sense of despair.
Rating:
Summary: A merciless urban tragedy
Review: With "Shella," Vachss strips the narrative down even further than in his Burke novels. The first-person delivery rivals Forrest Gump. The coverflap lays it out. Ghost is (metaphorically) an alligator; his body and skills have grown during captivity, but his soul is crippled in its youth. With "no experience of nurture or education," he becomes a bare-hands killer with no sense that lives might matter beyond their bounty. The hardback edition features a drawing of an alligator. The corners of the page show a diamond, a spade and a club...no heart. After Ghost's last prison term, he needs to find Shella, the "sole witness to his own humanity." If she's gone, Ghost loses his only evidence of hope in human connection. The plot involves no self-discovery. Other killers help him find Shella and he helps them by infiltrating a white supremacist stronghold and closing in on the leader. The events serve a cautionary theme. When Ghost (more than once) shows a steadiness and strength of hand ideal for a life-giving surgeon, it's too late for that. When Shella and Ghost reunite, it's also too late. "Shella" is a sad picture of what people become, by society's doing and by their own. Shella and Ghost weren't torn apart from each other. They were each torn apart when they met, and needed each other to become more or less whole. This is Vachss' best example of dead souls still walking around, playing their roles. An alligator has no greater destiny than One More Day...
Rating:
Summary: A merciless urban tragedy
Review: With "Shella," Vachss strips the narrative down even further than in his Burke novels. The first-person delivery rivals Forrest Gump. The coverflap lays it out. Ghost is (metaphorically) an alligator; his body and skills have grown during captivity, but his soul is crippled in its youth. With "no experience of nurture or education," he becomes a bare-hands killer with no sense that lives might matter beyond their bounty. The hardback edition features a drawing of an alligator. The corners of the page show a diamond, a spade and a club...no heart. After Ghost's last prison term, he needs to find Shella, the "sole witness to his own humanity." If she's gone, Ghost loses his only evidence of hope in human connection. The plot involves no self-discovery. Other killers help him find Shella and he helps them by infiltrating a white supremacist stronghold and closing in on the leader. The events serve a cautionary theme. When Ghost (more than once) shows a steadiness and strength of hand ideal for a life-giving surgeon, it's too late for that. When Shella and Ghost reunite, it's also too late. "Shella" is a sad picture of what people become, by society's doing and by their own. Shella and Ghost weren't torn apart from each other. They were each torn apart when they met, and needed each other to become more or less whole. This is Vachss' best example of dead souls still walking around, playing their roles. An alligator has no greater destiny than One More Day...
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