Down In The Zero

Burke #7

by Andrew Vachss

   Andrew Vachss has reinvented detective fiction for an age in which guilty secrets are obsolete and murder isn't even worth a news headline. And in the person of his haunted, hell-ridden private eye Burke, Vachss has given us a new kind of a man inured to every evil except the kind that preys on children.    Now Burke is back, investigating an epidemic of apparent suicides among teenagers of a wealthy Connecticut suburb.  There he discovers a sinister connection between the anguish of the young and the activities of an elite sadomasochistic underground, for whom pan and its accompanying rituals are a source of pleasure—and power

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Thriller, Noir, Suspense, Mystery Thriller

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for “aggressive-violent” youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a “children’s book for adults.” His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, the New York Times, and many other forums. A native New Yorker, he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.

The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is
www.vachss.com. That site and this page are managed by volunteers. To contact Mr. Vachss directly, use the "email us" function of vachss.com.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Devasted over the death of an innocent on his last case, Burke takes a job that sees him in the Connecticut suburbs investigating a string of teen suicides. Burke's investigations take him into a web of S&M and blackmail that he may never escape...

Andrew Vachss' Burke stories are so bleak that they make the apocalypse look inviting by comparison and this one is no exception. Like the previous tales, Burke's case takes him up against uncomfortable subjects like child abuse. This time, Vachss also throws S&M and blackmail into the mix for good measure.

As I journey farther down Burke's dark path, I notice he continues to grow as a character, something that doesn't happen very much in a series of this kind. Burke shows a remarkable amount (for him) of patience with Randy and is actually nicer to some of the other players than he normally is. While I missed most of the usual supporting cast, Mama and The Prof were in fine form.

The characters of Randy and Fancy were among the most interesting in the series so far, both in their backgrounds and the way they interacted with Burke. It's not very often you see a borderline sociopathic detective befriend a teenage boy or have a dominatrix as a sidekick but Vachss really makes it work.

While I liked Down in the Zero, I didn't love it. The mystery seemed forgotten at times and was in no way solveable, and the side plot about the computer disk and the gems felt tacked on. It felt like a "rebuilding" sort of book so Burke would be ready for whatever gets vomited in his path in the next one. Other than that, it was a pretty enjoyable read. I now know more about S&M than I ever wanted to.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book portrays Burke in crisis emotionally, even with his family's support. He manages to face up to his problems in Connecticut of all places. I think the change of venue may have spawned a more positive attitude in the NYC's bleakest operator. I don't expect to see it again. :-D

[Skip · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weakest book so far in the Burke series. An old friend's 19-year old (?) son (Randy) calls Burke in a panic because there is an epidemic of suicides among his rich crowd in suburban Connecticut. Owing Randy's mother a favor and passing the Prof's legit test, Burke masquerades at the caretaker since he cannot fit in this community despite a cool outfit from Michelle. Burke investigates and gets caught up in a weird S&M relationship with Fancy, which itself is an integral part of the story. Burke's support and friendship with Randy is nice, but the plot is more twisted than Lombard Street, and the sado-masochistic sex and storyline seemed really gratuitous.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vachss writing style is not for me really. I got this and another one at a used books store a long time ago, but sent them both off to someone wanting after finishing this. Hard and brutal, but not terribly engaging. There is fierce competition in crime writing and so I select carefully who to follow. Lots of people seem to think Vachss makes the cut though!

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I continue to go through this 18 book series that I first read about 10 years ago, I learned that Andrew Vachss died last year at the age of 79. I felt some thing of a loss but mostly disappointed that I had not heard about it at the time it happened. I guess he was just not quite that famous! I thought this particular book in the series was the one I least appreciated so far in the theories because I thought it strayed much to far from the normal work and experience of Burke.

When Vachss was 7 years old, an older boy swung a chain at his right eye. The resulting injuries damaged the eye muscles and resulted in his wearing an eyepatch. According to Vachss, removing it had the effect of a strobe light flashing in his face. Vachss also had a small blue heart tattooed on his right hand.

Vachss' wife, Alice, was a sex crimes prosecutor, and she later became Chief of the Special Victims Bureau in Queens, New York. She is the author of the nonfiction book Sex Crimes: Ten Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has continued her work as Special Prosecutor for Sex Crimes in rural Oregon.

He died of coronary artery disease on November 23, 2021, at the age of 79 at his residence in Pacific Northwest.

——————————
Published in 1994, Down in the Zero continues the Vachss tradition of women with unusual first names. This time it is Fancy and Charm. It is the seventh book in the eighteen book Burke series.

Vachss introduces a young male character who has skill and daring, moving immediately into a significant role in the book. Randy (“I don’t like my name.) morphs into Sonny after showing that he is a born auto driver who is headed for the Grand Prix or Daytona by the end of the book after putting Burke’s Plymouth through its paces to help solve the mystery of the teenage suicides. Burke brings out the best in the boys he mentors. But they don’t take the middle class route to college.

This is a short book, 259 pages in paperback, that takes Burke away from NYC into affluent Connecticut. A string of teens has committed suicide and it is Burke’s job to find the common link as he exorcizes his own demons and searches for love at the same time.

It’d been quite a long time. Since I went into that house and killed a child.

It is normal Vachss: kinky sex, abused children, outside the mainstream. And a bit of 1994 high tech. Burke is the hero with more than just a hint of the bad guy and more than a five o’clock shadow. It is true: “I never met a man like you before.” His odd NYC cohort is mostly absent in this book – even his trusty mastiff.

One of the things that I like about Burke stories is that they are set in New York City. This book isn’t and I miss it. I am reading the series in order; books eight through eighteen are lined up on my bookshelf along with a couple of collections of Vachss short stories. I usually read several other books between Burkes. I am going to read number eight Footsteps of the Hawk immediately to see if that increases my enjoyment.

I have routinely been expecting Vachss books to be four stars and am disappointed when they only reach three like this one. This is two three star books in a row – not satisfactory for a series as far as I am concerned. I will very likely read the rest of the series since I already have all the books but I would like to enjoy them more.

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burke, Vachss' anti-hero, is a quasi-detective, part vigilante, who has a soft spot for protecting children. We learn during the course of the novel that he grew up in an orphanage, has no memory of either parent, has served time in prison, where he learned much of his "trade" from the "Prof" who speaks in bizarre rhymes, and was a mercenary in Africa.

In this novel (basically your good, fun, fast, read - great for trains, planes or buses), he is summoned to help protect a young boy whose mother Burke had known briefly in the distant past. Randy, who lives in a very wealthy area, is concerned because many of his friends have been committing suicide, and he thinks someone, or something, is driving them to it. All of them have been treated by the Crystal Cove mental facility, and all of them took their lives within ninety days after having been treated and released. Sensing there may be money to be made in the arrangement somewhere, Burke is soon in the middle of a bizarre
scheme to hide people by giving them new identities, and a concomitant blackmail scheme mixed up with some rather kinky sex.

Burke is not perhaps as interesting a character as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, but he certainly keeps your attention.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a huge bummer that I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I did the previous six books. Burke is one of my all-time favorite crime protagonists and some of Vachss’ previous entries in the series (like Blue Belle or Hard Candy) were truly stunning and original works. I’m hoping that it was just Burke’s general mood and location in this one, as he was (rightfully, after the events in Sacrifice) a lot more grim and morbid than usual and spent most of the book outside of his usual NYC stomping grounds. In this one he’s met by an old acquaintance’s son who insists his that someone is killing the kids in his social circle and making it look like suicide. The kid wants someone to figure out what’s going on and seems to need someone to look after him in the meantime.

Although the setup sounds juicy and interesting this was the least interesting plots in a Burke book I’ve encountered. Events progress in a very sporadic manner, are insanely convoluted, and didn’t wrap up to my satisfaction. What still made this end up being a good book is Vachss’ ice-cold prose and seeing Burke spend some time with Randy (the kid I mentioned earlier.) He seems almost friendly and warm compared to previous novels and clearly enjoys teaching Randy about things like their shared passion for cars as well as life in general. I mean, no one would call Burke a sweetheart but this is as close to it as he’s probably gonna get and it was a refreshing development in his character.

I really hated giving this one three stars because I do love the series but I gotta keep it honest. It just didn’t have that awful, feverish vitality that the previous books did and the relative lack of Burke’s “family of choice” didn’t help. I really can’t think of a time in this book when some judicious use of Max the Silent or Michelle wouldn’t have helped things enormously. Most of these novels also include a kind of twisted “love” interest and Fancy simply cannot hang with previous damaged goddesses like Flood or Belle. I do have to chuckle at the apparent two things all of Burke’s women share--a dark past and a big butt. Surely the big butt thing is just Burke’s preference and not yours though, right Mr. Vachss?

[Tim Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happen to like Andrew Vachss very much. Burke is his own man, a unique individual who isn't someone with whom anyone can really identify. His world is peopled by characters as disparate as the invisible rejects and crazies who are all around us in any city these days, and somehow as connected and interwoven as any tightly-knit family. And Burke's world is the icy, raw and brutal city of New York, where the relentless evil is like a deadly poison, flowing through the streets and the veins of its citizens, the citizens of a Vachss novel. Into the Zero gets Burke out of New York and into the wealthy suburbs. His heart emerges clearly and the evil that has infected Burke gets lanced and spews out through his personal involvement in the redemption of several lives th Burke touches and impacts and ultimately changes. He has heart. This lets us see it in a different light. My liking of this book has a lot to do with the gradual emergence of the kid and how sensitive Burke is to the kid's need to become a man. That's only one of the people whom Burke impacts. There are a couple of others whose otherwise dead-end or one-dimensional lives are beneficially and permanently changed. Can you tell that I like this book and that I appreciate Andrew Vachss?

[Alex McConnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vachss is back and his main man Burke is hurting bad from the accidental death at the end of his last case.
Down in the Zero is the usual dose of bleak children at risk tale we’ve come to expect in the series. Vachss takes a look at suicide with this one, bringing the idea home by having Burke struggle with the thought himself, the being gone in the Zero. This allows for the plot to engage as well as shows Burkes depth of humanity and growth as a character.
While there are some really good themes in this entry, there are some things that lack as usual. Vachss tends to add the mystery more as a side dish while the characterizations, child abuse and his own inner thoughts make up the main course. While this is usual territory for Vachss it leaves the reader wanting, as there is rarely a satisfactory explanation or comeuppance at times. There could have been more done with this plot easily, tho I understand why he chose to grow his main character through relationships with Randy and Fancy. And the Fancy relationship gets a little rough, lemme tell ya.
Overall another excellent entry in what may well be the most hard boiled crime series of all time.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy it. It's built like the other Burke novels I've read, a time bomb with a clock that speeds up as you go until you can see the minute hand spinning. You can tell it's built by a master craftsman, a mahagony box with seamless construction. By the time it explodes and you find out it's filled with roofing nails, rock salt and dog shit it's too late to run and you realize you're the target.

Vachss makes no bones about this being his goal, and I knew the deal when I picked it up. Of course I'm reading the rest of the series. Everyone's got to face down the demons at some point.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing read for a number of reasons.

* The book seemed repetitive at times, lots of driving around and visiting the same people.
* It had many pointless scenes that served no purpose to progress the story or the characters. The whole Randy racing-car sub story didn't add anything.
* Lots of referencing previous books (I presume) which is fine if you are reading the series in order, but as this is my first Burke story it made no sense. There just seemed to be too much referencing for my liking.
* I don't like how you have no idea what is going on until the "big reveal" at the end.
* The actual big reveal was a damp squib and in my mind completely unrealistic.

Having said all this, I do like Andrew Vachss's hard-boiled writing style.

[John Culuris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come.

[J. Griff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here I am ending the 7th book "Down in the Zero" in the Burke series. I do love the gritty, Noir style writing of Andrew Vachss. This story takes Burke out of the rougher parts of NYC & has him in a upscale & ritzy town in Connecticut by the son of an old "acquaintance" who is scared due to a rash of teen suicides that aren't be reported in the paper. Burke's investigation starts off a lot slower than the rest of the series & wasn't till about about half-way thru before I started to figure out where the story was going (or I could just be a bit denser than I thought). I still plan on continuing with the series for at least a few more books.

[Martina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noir anni '90 con investigatore privato un po' macho un po' micio, un po' di sesso in qua e in là, un po' di psicologia di base e storia comunque carina. Lettura di svago.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women throwing themselves at Burke is getting a little hard to swallow.

[Hera · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first experience reading Burke story- recommended by a friend who turns out to be a big fan of him. Once I started to read, the slow plot at the beginning and the conversation style with some of the 'invisible' characters were quite difficult to grasp. But I managed to survive until almost the mid part, and the story began to fold in a very interesting way, along with a series of dark case on teenage suicidal in a rich neighborhood. I love the part where Burke met Fancy, a woman who help him solving the case while she tries to understand the whole experiences from her childhood that makes her represent the sub-dom character she has.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cast of characters and grim depictions of New york all thrown out in favour of a romance that takes up so much of the book yet is so horribly executed with what the series had been building up to that point serving as dressing for this shit stained cannonball. I can understand this decision to give more character development to Burke but man having loads of sex scenes is not the way to do it.

[Kirby Coe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book

No way to write a good review. Words fail me as I can’t capture in a concise way how good the book is—so just read it. It will make better sense, though, if you have read the previous “Burke” books.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I realized a few pages in that I had read this one before, but continued on because I did not remember how it ended, and did not know at the time that I had read it that it was part of a series. Anywho, not one of my favorites but it's nice to keep with the Burke flow.

[Chris Lott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite book in the series. I did enjoy the PTSD Burke was dealing with from the end of the last book but other than that it wasn't Vachss strongest book. Way too heavy on the BDSM with his current female friend, just doesn't jive for his character.

[Sandor Enckell · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a suspenseful thriller, this ain't it.

If you're looking for a surprisingly healthy (albeit with some issues) and graphic d/s relationship between a detective and a traumatized sex worker, then give it a try.

[Nancy Kosek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn’t know what this book was going to be about - definitely different from my usual fare. At times I couldn’t figure out where it was going and it felt like it wasn’t sure which of the seemingly two different stories it was trying to tell.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta like Burke and his hot rod cab....and especially his mission in life to help the kids. Vachss sparse writing gives it a nice noir feel.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1995. Another crime novel featuring Burke, the hard-boiled, in your face,ex-con detective.

[Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story!
Burke seems quite different in this one, not sure how I feel about that.
Kinda miss the old Burke, but the new Burke is cool too.
Looking forward to how this goes.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't care for this book. The story line wasn't as strong as his other books. The sex and S&M was gratuitous. I didn't like most of the characters.. .

[Nik Bramblett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of these books back about 15-20 years ago, but there were a couple I missed. Honestly, it's a pretty neat "world" this guy has built, and I think the characters and so forth are intriguing. Basically, there's this guy "Burke," who is a thug with a pretty much nonexistent childhood, who has quite a criminal record, and for some years now has put together a 'family' of other thugs. He's kind of like a 'rough-trade' sort of 'Equalizer,' with a particular bent towards hunting child molesters and such freaks.

What's most interesting to me is the character's sense of morality, wherein basically he's really big on the concept of respecting autonomy, and believes that whatever choices consenting adults make, however odd-seeming to other people, are for the most part none of anybody else's business. Meanwhile, though, abusing children, who in his mind are NOT consenting (or perhaps even capable of it) is plainly very wrong.

In this particular story, he struggles with his own memory of a particularly unfortunate (and regrettable) incident in his own past, as he seeks to make sense out of what appears to be a string of compelled suicides. The story also explores some fetish scene stuff (which, in his mind, is somewhat bizarre and maybe even distasteful to some, but really none of anybody's business) and gets to play "big brother" or whatever to a teenage guy who has some really damaging past influences to overcome.

As usual, it's really an enjoyable, if kinda superficial, read. I recommend it (and others in this series-- there's some accumulated 'memories,' so it's probably best to read them in order)in the same way as I recommend Lawrence Sanders' Archie McNally books.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sub par installment in the Burke series (2.5 stars is more accurate) that finds the "private eye" once again leaving the familiar confines of New York City, this time for the neatly manicured lawns of Fairfield County, CT. Burke's there to look into a rash of suicides that have been affecting the children of the wealthy and, of course, to find an angle to make a buck. He develops a relationship with Randy, the child of an old associate that hires Burke to investigate the suicides. Randy turns out to be a natural driver and Burke and him bond over a mutual love of cars and racing (even incorporating a race into the storyline). Like many of the previous installments, the bad guy is identified early on and his/her motive left unestablished until the final few pages. This time around, it just didn't glue for me, I guess I find the environment (suburban, CT, exactly where I grew up) not all that good of a fit for a Burke novel. Either way, a sub par Burke novel still has that same grittiness that makes Vachss work so enjoyable to me so I'm looking forward to the next installment, regardless of how much "Zero" fell flat.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked all of the Vachss books. I guess I read most or all of them. But they are really dark; darker than Michael Connelly, modern LA, "noir" detective books where the hero, detective Heironymous Bosch's prostitute mother is an unsolved murder case. In Vachss' (I think it's pronounced "vash") novels EVERYONE's mother is a prostitute--his characters won't even hang out with you if you never blew anybody for money! So it's a bit over the top, but basically Vachss' dark avenger heroes make everybody pay who hurts someone they know. The hero (Burke)'s day job is stealing money from pedophiles and other people who everybody hates. None of his characters pay taxes or have real IDs or addresses. So it's an interesting fantasy. I think it's kind of like the vampires, or Jerzy Kosinski characters, too, people who do whatever they want, all of the time, because none of them care if they live or die (or are already dead in some cases). It's interesting; I wonder if this appeals to those with little power in society? Try a Vachss novel and let me know.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Burke novel. When I'm finished reading/re-reading the series in order, I'm going to assign five stars to the novel that combines the things I like about the series most effectively (and downplays the parts I'm not crazy about, primarily the occasional sex scene that feels gratuitous). Down in the Zero does a better job than usually integrating the sex into the plot line and demands of character development than it was in the early novels in the series). The focus here is on healing. Burke begins the novel in a suicidal depression after the events that end the previous novel Sacrifice; that's the title image. Called to the up-scale Connecticut suburbs to investigate a series of teen suicides, he meets a couple of interesting characters with their own psychic demons. The milieu's very different from Burke's normal underworld New York City, the in its own way it's every bit as dark. This probably won't be the five star--not enough of Burke's "family" and I do enjoy the NYC settings. But it's among the best in the series.