I like the writing and I like the stories, but sometimes it seems things that should be built-up to, just happen.
Without giving away any spoilers, a girl calls him, he calls back for info and then she's naked and telling him she loves him.
C'mon man! Give me at least a half page of wooing for realities sake, lol. ( )

Burke is asked by a pimp named Marques to take on a bounty for the operators of the Ghost Van, a vehicle patrolling the streets of Manhattan, killing prostitutes. His contact with Marques is initiated through Belle, a buxom stripper who thinks Burke is her savior. Turns out she is an excellent wheelman. The search for the Ghost Van brings Burke to Mortay, a psychotic killer, who wants to fight Burke's close friend, Silent Max, to the death, and breaks the legs of the Prof to get Burke's attention. Violent, gritty stuff, but Burke's love of his ad hoc family sets him apart from the scum.

Reading the Burke series at the same time as the Parker series is very interesting. Burke is much more prone to violence, but also seems to be in the game to protect those who cannot defend themselves. Parker is all about the score, himself, and often, his team. ( )

Vachss is as much of a grimy guilty pleasure as ever. Packed to the gills with sneered one-liners and the worst of humanity. ( )

The third Burke novel and as with the previous two, titled after the woman central to the story. As I was reading, this was easily my least favorite so far--and by a wide margin. I’ll put aside the transparent mystery of the Ghost Van. That’s a time issue. In 1988, when Blue Belle was published, it would take more than half the book to figure it out. It’s hardly fair to hold that against Vachss since it’s because of the tireless work of him and others like him that these things are no longer a dirty secret here in 2016. It was Belle I had the problem with. We got essentially the same scene between her and Burke over and over: her desperate need for his love, his need for her to conform to the rules by which he lives his life, the clash of the two, and an accepted agreement or stalemate. Mix and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Not that Belle wasn’t an interesting character. Sprinkling her past into scenes like these is one of Vachss’ premier skills. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough history to invigorate these exchanges as they started to repeat themselves. But remember, I qualified my comments with “as I was reading.” Once we got down to dealing with the main villain and the cost of doing so, Blue Belle was as good as anything Vachss has written (conceding I’m three novels and one co-written short story into his work). A great ending can cover a multitude of sins. And this hardly qualified as a multitude. ( )

If you like the earlier Burke books you'll probably like this one. Vachss pulls back the curtain slightly more on Burke's psychology. I enjoy how he explains some odd behaviors and why they make sense to a, um, non-citizen.

I enjoy Vachss' dialog but he goes just a little too far in stripping it down, to the point where you wonder if anyone actually talks that way.

Maybe I'm just cynical but Vachss did not sell me well enough on why Burke would fall so hard for Belle when he's still thinking of Flood.

Belle was an odd mix of competent (such a pro getaway driver) and ignorant (the "rules"). Also her physical description had me confused and made her seem less human.

The whole deal about keeping Max away from Mortay was contrived. He was worried that even if Max won he would be "known" for dropping Mortay? Couple of issues with that. Lots of people wanted to drop Mortay so it wouldn't be obvious who managed it (as we find in the next book, Hard Candy!) and Burke himself gets that rep he didn't want Max to have, even though it really was Max's fight. Oh, and put me down for a C-note on Max to win, lol!

Okay, so I sound like I'm griping too much here. I don't come to Vachss with high expectations, as I might with Charlie Huston. I come to be swept away with a gritty tale of urban underbelly fantasy. He did that here and did it with style. ( )