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Another Life: The Final Burke Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Vachss
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.85
You Save: $10.10 (40%)
New (31) Used (6) from $13.95
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 3621
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307377415
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307377418
ASIN: 0307377415
Publication Date: December 30, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: PRISTINE NEW HARDCOVER// STATED FIRST EDITION// FIRST PRINTING// LINE # 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1// PAGES NEVER TURNED// SHIPS WITH USPS DELIVERY CONFIRMATION
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Product Description
In this blistering new novel, Burke ("lord of the Asphalt Jungle"–The Washington Post Book World) is forced into a journey that will change the lives of the urban survivalist and his outlaw family ... forever.
The only person Burke has ever called "father," a legendary crime planner known throughout the underworld as the Prof, is in a coma, barely clinging to life in the off-the-books hospital where the crew stashed him after their last job went off the rails. So when Pryce, a shadow-man with deep (and very dark) government connections, offers a package–Presidential-grade medical services for the Prof and a wiped-clean slate for everyone who participates–Burke signs the contract without reading it.
The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch: no errors, no forensics ... and no ransom note. Burke's job: get the kid back. Whatever it costs, whatever it takes. Pryce came to Burke because the profile concluded this was the work of a pedophile ring. But after Burke turns over every rock and comes up empty in his hunt for maggots, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day "Baby Boy Burke" was written on his birth certificate to conduct the one interrogation that could possible save this child and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of his life story.
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| Customer Reviews:
Is this really the last "Burke" novel? January 4, 2009
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Another Life by Andrew Vachss is the newest "Burke" hardcover and also supposedly the last "Burke" novel in the series, according to the author's marketing people. For whatever reason, Mr. Vachss has decided to stop writing the series and to pursue a list of other writing projects. Because I knew this would be the last "Burke" novel (remember, Stephen King said that he was retiring from writing all together five years ago, and he's still at it), I made the assumption that Burke would be killed off, especially in some kind of dynamic fashion that would blow the readers right out their little white cotton Bobby socks in total awe and electrifying shock. I was also expecting the final return of Wesley (why? I don't know) so that he could be with his brother of choice at the end. Well, Burke doesn't die at the end and Wesley doesn't return from the dead. I know because I re-read the ending four times to make sure I didn't miss something important. No, Burke is still narrating the story in the first person right up till the last sentence. My mistake!
The story deals with the kidnapped son of a Saudi prince in New York City, who enjoys driving around at night and picking up prostitutes while his two-year-old son is sitting in a car seat in the back, so that the kid can learn from his father what women are really like in his eyes and how they should be treated by those in power. Basically, what it comes down to is that the prince hates women and wants his son to grow up hating them, too, so that he treats them all as objects and with no respect. On one particular night, after an eventual encounter with a hooker, the prince suddenly wakes up inside his Rolls Royce, realizing that he'd been put into a drug-induced sleep. His son has been kidnapped. Because of the prince's money and his contacts in high places, the whole incident is swiftly hushed up and buried. The prince, however, wants his son back, and he hires a man named Pryce, who's an ex-government shadow man, who knows how to get information and to find the right people for any job. After Pryce does his own investigating, he comes to the conclusion that a team of child predators might have taken the prince's son for whatever reason. Pryce then goes to Burke for help. Using Burke's chosen father, the Professor, as leverage (the Professor is still in a make-shift hospital, recovering from the wound that was acquired in The Terminal), he gets the career-criminal to agree to take on the job of finding the little boy. Burke then calls in all of his markers in order to find out who wanted the child, who had the most to gain, and even if the little boy is still alive. During the search, Burke inadvertently discovers more about himself and his relationship to his chosen family (Michelle, the Mole, Max the Silent, Mamma, the Professor, Terry, and Clarence), and the reader therefore learns more about Burke's past, especially as a mercenary in Biafra. In the end, Burke will have to make a very important decision with regards to the prince's son and bringing him back to the one person who actually loves him and only wants what is best for the boy.
Filled with an array of new characters (Pryce, Cyn and Rejji, Dryslan, and Norbert) that the reader would certainly like to learn more about), Another Life also has large amounts of introspection by Burke and what almost seems like an endless stream of political commentary that reminded me of many of the later novels in the series, offering the reader the opportunity to find out more about the author's own views on society, law, government, and life in general. Along with that, there's a subplot in the novel that deals with Terry's unexpected involvement with the Professor's nurse and the romantic relationship that blossoms between them. All of this is fine, but for me, there was no payoff like the one in The Terminal. If this was to be Burke's final novel, then I felt there should've been more action and excitement and hardcore violence in it that was reminiscent of the first several books (Flood, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, Strega, and Blossom) so that the series could come back full circle and fulfill the expectations, which had been set by gifted writer who literally created a genre of his own with the character of Burke.
Other fans have already remarked on how this book gave them chills when reading it and that the storyline offered them enlightening revelations that answered many of the questions which had arisen from the previous seventeen novels. I was hoping for these things myself, but unfortunately, they didn't come. I truly wanted Another Life to be the ultimate reading experience for me in 2009, and preferably of the entire "Burke" series. It wasn't.
Also, for some strange reason, I don't actually feel as if the series is over. In fact, I think Mr. Vachss will come back in three-or-four years with another "Burke" novel, and that maybe this will be the one I've been waiting for--a book so damn good that it stuns the reader into absolute silence at the end and leaves him numb with a mixture of emotions that linger long after the novel has been finished...a book so great that the reader eventually says to himself that, "It was well worth the twenty-year wait!"
 Great writing, terrible political commentary January 3, 2009
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've read all 18 of the Burke novels and about half way through began to enjoy them progressively less. That is not so much a comment on Vachss' writing, which is formidable, but rather on the fact that, once Burke became pretty much a stereotype, there was not much to develop, only to report. To me, the characters became increasingly more two-dimmensinal, and the social commentary got progressively more hackneyed. It's as though Vachss could not choose between writing a novel and a column. Also, I've spent my life fighting against abuse and oppression and I frankly got tired of being preached to by Vachss. He is probably a foremost SME on child abuse; but his writing leaves much to be desired on a host of other topics, not the least of which are firearms, dogs, and countersurveillance.
Anyway, I was willing to forgive all, and give Burke's swansong a go. And, in the area of character development, this book, like many of the earlier ones, is actually about people -- some of whom I actually liked, for a change. IMHO this part was Vachss at his unequaled best. Along the way I became truly interested in what was going to happen to Burke.
But as such a price. Just finished listening to two years of election prime-time rhetoric dealing in absolutes (by both sides)and I find that probably two thirds of the book is actually a series of speeches/sermons/asides. And, not particularly sophisticated at that. At least I didn't find them so. Had the book been half as long, perhaps if it had had an editor, it would have been a magnificent 5-star send off for Burke. As it was, I found it a little tedious.
Were I to rate the whole series, I would probably go with 4-stars or better. No one can keep it up for 18 books, and Vachss did better than most. Additionally, he probably created his own genre. So despite any negative observations by me, I DID after all, read all 18 of them. Not bad run at all Andrew!
 Perfect conclusion to a perfect series December 30, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've followed Vachss' Burke series from book one. (Started, actually, with Sacrifice, then jumped back to Flood and went forward from there.) I've always loved the books, have enjoyed watching the characters grow, and enjoy going back through them to get a sense of time and place; as much as you can see the changes in the characters, you can also witness the change in the country, and the change in our culture, all of which Vachss reflects on in the books.
I won't give away anything from this last chapter, but I will say this: it's both a beautiful send-off for Burke's family, and also includes an amazing revelation about Burke that was sitting there in front of me, I never recognized, and now, with it revealed, it really changes the context of all 17 of the previous novels.
A masterpiece! Highly recommended!
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