“Sacrifice” (1995) is the sixth book in Andrew Vachss’s urban survival series based around the guy named Burke. These books have a definite feel to them, and all deal in some way with child abuse. Burke takes a zero-tolerance attitude toward hurting kids. Child molesters are “freaks,” and he deals with them. Vachss, in real life, is an attorney who works exclusively with cases pertaining to children and youth.

The titles of the first five books reflect the major female character–Flood, Strega, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, Blossom. Here, “sacrifice” refers to a young boy around whom the plot revolves. This boy has been severely abused, tortured and sexually assaulted as part of a pedophile ring. To cope with it, he split into multiple personalities. Most of the time he is Luke. But there are also Toby, Baby Susie, and a very scary kid who calls himself “Satan’s Child.” In that personality, Luke has killed.

Burke, with the help of his rogue’s gallery of friends–Max, the Mole, the Prophet, newcomer Clarence, and Mama–tries to track down the people responsible for abusing Luke and others.

Andrew Vachss

If Vachss stuck to the plot, the book would be about two-thirds as long. But he meanders around, dealing with various things that come up. This does not detract from the book, not in Vachss’s skilled hands. It just provides more atmospherics, drawing you deeper into this New York City underworld.

Then I moved on to the next book in the series, “Down in the Zero” (1995) This book was set in a tony Connecticut neighborhood where a number of teens have been committing suicide. One teen suspects murder, and fears that he’ll be next, so he comes to Burke for help.

So Burke goes to that town and tries to unravel what’s happening. It’s perhaps my least favorite Burke book, with way too much sexual content and not much plot. Plus, as with “Blossom,” the story takes Burke away from New York City, and away from his urban crew. It makes the book much less interesting.

Next, I read “Safehouse” (1998), thinking it was the next book in the series, when in fact there are two books between “Safehouse” and “Down in the Zero.” Anyway, “Safehouse” is very good. The theme is stalking. Burke gets involved with Crystal Beth, who helps run a safehouse for abused women, many of whom are being stalked in some way. Vachss creates very interesting female characters, and Crystal Beth is in that tradition, somewhat reminiscent of Lizbeth Salander in Steig Larsson’s great books. Through her, Burke becomes enmeshed with a shadowy CIA-type named Pryce in a sting on a neo-Nazi ring intent on carrying out a terrorist plot. Since this was written prior to 9/11, but after the Oklahoma City bombing and the original World Trade Center bombing, it’s extra interesting.

Toward the latter part of the book, Crystal Beth takes Burke around to a number of women in the safehouse, and they tell their stories of being stalked in some way, and usually physically abused in terrible ways. These are engrossing stories in themselves. I’m guessing that they were adapted from actual cases Andrew Vachss or his wife worked with, or knew about, in their real-world work as victims advocates.

Again, there is plenty of sexual content, though not as graphic as what you’ll find in a Stuart Woods novel. But it’s all part of this urban world Vachss has constructed, a world I find fascinating. And his focus on victims–particularly children, but also women–gives it not only a redeeming quality, but a strong educational element.

“The Bricklayer” is Noah Boyd’s debut novel, and it’s a great one. Lee Child, James Patterson, and Patricia Cornwell all praise the book in cover tributes.

The title character is Steve Vail, a former FBI agent who can’t stomach incompetent persons in positions of authority, which is why he quit (or was fired from) the FBI a few years back. But he was a very good agent. Now, he’s a bricklayer in Chicago.

Now, the FBI is being totally stymied by a series of murders, accompanied by extortion demands, from what appears to be a gang of maybe five people (based on the name they go by). Vail is recruited to try to find the bad guys, using somewhat off-the-books methods (since nothing official is working).

The plot moves along at a good pace, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader off-balance. A variety of characters enter the picture, and you wonder if any of them are bad guys in disguise. Vail works alongside Kate, a senior FBI agent who is, of course, beautiful. They have some adventures together, following leads which the FBI brass have either written off or don’t know about.

I pretty much guessed how the book would end up, but it was a lucky guess. This is a very, very good book. You’ll enjoy it. He’s got another book about Steve Vail in the works, too.

On vacation, I read three books. Not a very impressive output, by my standards, and certainly fewer than I expected to read. But three it was. And here are two of them.

“The Enemy” is Lee Child’s 2004 book about Jack Reacher. Although it’s the 8th book in the series, it’s actually a prequel to all the other books. The story takes us back to Reacher’s days as an MP in the military. A general dies under suspicious circumstances, then his wife is killed, then a Delta soldier is killed, then the Delta commander is killed. Reacher and a woman MP fight through all kinds of institutional obstacles to try to solve the murders and figure out what in the world was happening.

Frankly, this was my least favorite Reacher book. It was very much a police procedural. The plot moved along slowly, without the “thriller” feel of his other books. I struggled to get through it. And when I got to the end, some things didn’t really add up for me. I think Lee Child needs to leave really intricate plotting to people like John Grisham, and just let Jack Reacher cause mayhem.

“Cross Country” is the 14th Alex Cross novel by James Patterson. I’ve read all 13 earlier novels, and as far as I can remember, they were all winners. “Cross Country” may be the first Alex Cross novel I didn’t really care for.

Patterson excels at creating villains. Here, it’s a hulking Nigerian named The Tiger who leads a band of killer kids in home invasions, massacring entire families. It’s all tied to things happening back in Nigeria. One of the victims is an old flame of Alex Cross.

Cross ends up traveling to Nigeria to catch The Tiger, and things immediately begin going badly. He also ends up in Sierra Leone, where we learn all about the civil war of the 1990s (though Patterson makes it sound almost like the rebel war is still going on), and then to Darfur, where we learn about the plight of refugees there. Then it’s back to Nigeria, where we learn more about the sad state of affairs in that country. In the process, he gets beat up more than Rocky.

It all felt unnecessary, especially the jaunts to Sierra Leone and Darfur. Neither trip furthered the plot. Patterson just wanted to inform readers about the situation in these places, and decided to do it very awkwardly. Philip Kerr’s “Berlin Noir” novels, set in Nazi Germany, provided a fascinating historical backdrop without sidetracking from his plots. A Michener novel educates you about times and places, without coming across as trying to “teach.” Patterson just didn’t do a good job with taking his story to a different country. He acquired some humanitarian conscience and wanted to spread it, and did it poorly.

A character as strong as Alex Cross does cry out for a TV series. Morgan Freeman played Alex Cross in a couple movies, but he was a bad choice–too old. A young Denzel would have been great.