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Two Trains Running
Electrifying, compelling, and ultimately terrifying, Two Trains Running is a galvanizing evocation of that moment in our history when the violent forces that would determine America’s future were just beginning to roil below the surface.
Once a devastated mill town, by 1959 Locke City has established itself as a thriving center of vice tourism. The city is controlled by boss Royal Beaumont, who took it by force many years ago and has held it against all comers since.
Now his domain is being threatened by an invading crime syndicate. But in a town where crime and politics are virtually indivisible, there are other players awaiting their turn onstage. Emmett Till’s lynching has inflamed a nascent black revolutionary movement. A neo-Nazi organization is preparing for race war. Juvenile gangs are locked in a death struggle over useless pieces of “turf.” And some shadowy group is supplying them all with weapons. With an IRA unit and a Mafia family also vying for local supremacy, it’s no surprise that the whole town is under FBI surveillance. But that agency is being watched, too.
Beaumont ups the ante by importing a hired killer, Walker Dett, a master tactician whose trademark is wholesale destruction. But there are a number of wild cards in this game, including Jimmy Procter, an investigative reporter whose tools include stealth, favor-trading, and blackmail, and Sherman Layne, the one clean Locke City cop, whose informants range from an obsessed “watcher” who patrols the edge of the forest, where cars park for only one reason, to the madam of the county’s most expensive bordello. But Layne is guarding a secret of his own, one that could destroy more than his career. Even the most innocent are drawn into the ultimate-stakes game–like Tussy Chambers, the beautiful waitress whose mystically deep connection with Walker Dett might inadvertently ignite the whole combustible mix.
In a stunning departure from his usual territory, Andrew Vachss gives us a masterful novel that is also an epic story of postwar America. Not since Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest has there been as searing a portrait of corruption in a small town. This is Vachss’s most ambitious, innovative, and explosive work yet.
Once a devastated mill town, by 1959 Locke City has established itself as a thriving center of vice tourism. The city is controlled by boss Royal Beaumont, who took it by force many years ago and has held it against all comers since.
Now his domain is being threatened by an invading crime syndicate. But in a town where crime and politics are virtually indivisible, there are other players awaiting their turn onstage. Emmett Till’s lynching has inflamed a nascent black revolutionary movement. A neo-Nazi organization is preparing for race war. Juvenile gangs are locked in a death struggle over useless pieces of “turf.” And some shadowy group is supplying them all with weapons. With an IRA unit and a Mafia family also vying for local supremacy, it’s no surprise that the whole town is under FBI surveillance. But that agency is being watched, too.
Beaumont ups the ante by importing a hired killer, Walker Dett, a master tactician whose trademark is wholesale destruction. But there are a number of wild cards in this game, including Jimmy Procter, an investigative reporter whose tools include stealth, favor-trading, and blackmail, and Sherman Layne, the one clean Locke City cop, whose informants range from an obsessed “watcher” who patrols the edge of the forest, where cars park for only one reason, to the madam of the county’s most expensive bordello. But Layne is guarding a secret of his own, one that could destroy more than his career. Even the most innocent are drawn into the ultimate-stakes game–like Tussy Chambers, the beautiful waitress whose mystically deep connection with Walker Dett might inadvertently ignite the whole combustible mix.
In a stunning departure from his usual territory, Andrew Vachss gives us a masterful novel that is also an epic story of postwar America. Not since Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest has there been as searing a portrait of corruption in a small town. This is Vachss’s most ambitious, innovative, and explosive work yet.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
11 people are currently reading
364 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Vachss
138 books891 followersAndrew 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
August 19, 2007
Normally, I would recommend an Andrew Vachss novel to anyone who enjoys Hammett, Chandler, Woolrich or anyone other author of crime fiction. Vachss is the most fast-paced, gritty and violent writer of crime fiction I've read in the past few years (but I haven't read all that many others either).
In Two Trains Running, however, he not only slows down his usual pace to a crawl, he deconstructs his usual anti-hero into a lame, tongue-tied avatar of his own fate, Walker Dett, capable of only being decisive and cunning only in regard to killing. He is so adept at his violent work and such a bumbling failure in the other portions of his life, he becomes unlikable and false by the end of the novel.
That hardly matters, because Dett isn't involved with much of the plot. Instead, there are two rival gangs of local hillbillies and Italians, led by Royal Beaumont and Sal Dioguardi, respectively. The Italians are trying to wrest power of a small vice town from Beaumont, who basically started the city's main industry when the mills closed down. Beaumont calls in Dett, an outsider, to set a chain of events in motion to free his organization from the mafia for the foreseeable future. Dett does his part by the conclusion, but for the most part, he's busy wooing a local waitress in a subplot that is more interesting and better done than the main story. Alongside the two main gangs are a myriad of FBI agents, hotel employees, teenage gangs, a whorehouse madame, a clean cop, a dirty reporter, the Klan, a black power faction, and Irish gangsters, most of whom appear so infrequently, it's impossible to tell many of them apart by the conclusion.
The book is written as the events unfold, with dates and times substituting for chapters. While occasionally, these slices of time provide crucial events, mostly they contain boring snippets of conversation, usually consisting of an frequently unnamed character explaining the events of the novel to his idiot partner/subordinate/girlfriend/etc. Often, two or three things will be happening at the same time, so Vachss jumps between different events as they happen, so instead of one boring scene, you get three or four. By the end of the book, I just wanted something--anything--to actually happen without a two-page exposition between Smarty and Dumbguy. When I did get to the end, it was a colossal letdown, as if Vachss himself had grown weary of men and women he didn't bother turning into fleshed-out characters as well, and just told himself to wrap it up.
I strongly recommend Andrew Vachss to anyone looking for a modern noir-type crime story, just stay away from this one. Try The Getaway Man, Shella, or Flood (to get an introduction to Vachss's recurring anti-hero, Burke).
In Two Trains Running, however, he not only slows down his usual pace to a crawl, he deconstructs his usual anti-hero into a lame, tongue-tied avatar of his own fate, Walker Dett, capable of only being decisive and cunning only in regard to killing. He is so adept at his violent work and such a bumbling failure in the other portions of his life, he becomes unlikable and false by the end of the novel.
That hardly matters, because Dett isn't involved with much of the plot. Instead, there are two rival gangs of local hillbillies and Italians, led by Royal Beaumont and Sal Dioguardi, respectively. The Italians are trying to wrest power of a small vice town from Beaumont, who basically started the city's main industry when the mills closed down. Beaumont calls in Dett, an outsider, to set a chain of events in motion to free his organization from the mafia for the foreseeable future. Dett does his part by the conclusion, but for the most part, he's busy wooing a local waitress in a subplot that is more interesting and better done than the main story. Alongside the two main gangs are a myriad of FBI agents, hotel employees, teenage gangs, a whorehouse madame, a clean cop, a dirty reporter, the Klan, a black power faction, and Irish gangsters, most of whom appear so infrequently, it's impossible to tell many of them apart by the conclusion.
The book is written as the events unfold, with dates and times substituting for chapters. While occasionally, these slices of time provide crucial events, mostly they contain boring snippets of conversation, usually consisting of an frequently unnamed character explaining the events of the novel to his idiot partner/subordinate/girlfriend/etc. Often, two or three things will be happening at the same time, so Vachss jumps between different events as they happen, so instead of one boring scene, you get three or four. By the end of the book, I just wanted something--anything--to actually happen without a two-page exposition between Smarty and Dumbguy. When I did get to the end, it was a colossal letdown, as if Vachss himself had grown weary of men and women he didn't bother turning into fleshed-out characters as well, and just told himself to wrap it up.
I strongly recommend Andrew Vachss to anyone looking for a modern noir-type crime story, just stay away from this one. Try The Getaway Man, Shella, or Flood (to get an introduction to Vachss's recurring anti-hero, Burke).
May 1, 2018
Vachss proves once again that he is great at writing a good old-fashioned, crime noir story. However while I did enjoy the book, there were still some flaws and issues that I had which took away from the overall novel.
The story, based in late 1959, involves Royal Beaumont, a self-professed hillbilly, who rules the town of Locke City with an iron fist. When the mafia start trying to muscle in on his business, Beaumont hires an outside enforcer who turns out to also be a great strategist. Throw into the mix some racial discord along with an Irish mob and corrupt FBI agents and you'll have all the pieces.
The problem was that the final picture included a little too much. The social and business interactions of the various groups were already a bit stretched. Then when Vachss threw in a bunch of political positioning too, it became too much and things didn't seem to gel together. Motives of the different groups were never clear. I don't think they were too complex for me to understand; I never saw them as being clear. And then to make matters worse, too many of the characters all read the same. At least four characters could be described as criminals with a strong moral or sense of honor. The source of their morals differed (racial pride or tortured soul being the two major ones) but their dialogue was interchangeable. It made the story difficult and not ring out as true. All in all, Vachss has done a much better job.
The story, based in late 1959, involves Royal Beaumont, a self-professed hillbilly, who rules the town of Locke City with an iron fist. When the mafia start trying to muscle in on his business, Beaumont hires an outside enforcer who turns out to also be a great strategist. Throw into the mix some racial discord along with an Irish mob and corrupt FBI agents and you'll have all the pieces.
The problem was that the final picture included a little too much. The social and business interactions of the various groups were already a bit stretched. Then when Vachss threw in a bunch of political positioning too, it became too much and things didn't seem to gel together. Motives of the different groups were never clear. I don't think they were too complex for me to understand; I never saw them as being clear. And then to make matters worse, too many of the characters all read the same. At least four characters could be described as criminals with a strong moral or sense of honor. The source of their morals differed (racial pride or tortured soul being the two major ones) but their dialogue was interchangeable. It made the story difficult and not ring out as true. All in all, Vachss has done a much better job.
August 4, 2015
A "one off" by Vachss (not part of a series...although it surely could be). Set in a small town in an unidentified state (but apparently a border state--my guess is southern Ohio/Pennsylvania or Northern Kentucky--although it could equally be Cairo, Illinois) in 1959. The local politics, gambling, sex trade, and most everything else is controlled by a local gang, which is being pressured by the Italians and the Irish. The local powers bring in a contract killer, which--as it always does--sets all kinds of things in motion.
If that was all, Vachss would have the bones for a good book. But he ups the ante significantly by including two factors central to US history in 1959: race and Kennedy's run for President. The town is clearly a Border State with a significant Black population...a population which is on the verge of joining the national civil rights movement, with all of the attendant destabilization that entailed. The national election, with vague hints at Kennedy's mob ties, and not at all vague hints at Hoover's corrupt operation of the FBI, also plays a big role, as outside forces all converge on this sleepy small town. Emmett Till makes a cameo, BTW.
As usual, Vachss makes it all work, giving each of the main characters enough back story to make them there dimensional, but not so much to interrupt the narrative flow (if you think that is an easy balance to strike, try writing five page which include both action and a character description. Trust me, it is really hard, and Vachss is a master at it.
As I said, this could be a series, as the outside contract killer is clearly a fascinating person. However, Vachss tells his entire story here, so that kinda let's out the usual series technique of slowly rolling out your main characters back story. So, I guess this one really is a one off.
If that was all, Vachss would have the bones for a good book. But he ups the ante significantly by including two factors central to US history in 1959: race and Kennedy's run for President. The town is clearly a Border State with a significant Black population...a population which is on the verge of joining the national civil rights movement, with all of the attendant destabilization that entailed. The national election, with vague hints at Kennedy's mob ties, and not at all vague hints at Hoover's corrupt operation of the FBI, also plays a big role, as outside forces all converge on this sleepy small town. Emmett Till makes a cameo, BTW.
As usual, Vachss makes it all work, giving each of the main characters enough back story to make them there dimensional, but not so much to interrupt the narrative flow (if you think that is an easy balance to strike, try writing five page which include both action and a character description. Trust me, it is really hard, and Vachss is a master at it.
As I said, this could be a series, as the outside contract killer is clearly a fascinating person. However, Vachss tells his entire story here, so that kinda let's out the usual series technique of slowly rolling out your main characters back story. So, I guess this one really is a one off.
October 26, 2007
It's cheesy noir.
But in a good way. It's cheesy noir for people who would otherwise throw cheesy noir across the room.
It's a beach read if you're reading on the beach when it's cloudy and sort of cold and damp out.
It's the thinking man's noir when he doesn't want to think too hard...just wants to fall into a genre but not feel stupid about it. I mean, would the thinking man read fucking Scott Turow?
It's Sol Yurick if Sol Yurick were more retro than PoMo.
But in a good way. It's cheesy noir for people who would otherwise throw cheesy noir across the room.
It's a beach read if you're reading on the beach when it's cloudy and sort of cold and damp out.
It's the thinking man's noir when he doesn't want to think too hard...just wants to fall into a genre but not feel stupid about it. I mean, would the thinking man read fucking Scott Turow?
It's Sol Yurick if Sol Yurick were more retro than PoMo.
July 13, 2015
I read this one ten years ago when it was originally released but surprisingly it didn't stay with me very well. That's to my benefit though as rereading it was great. It starts a little slowly and is very over descriptive at the start, but soon you find yourself hurtling down the tracks full speed ahead. This book has several irons in the fire and weaves them together well with the only regret being there hasn't been a sequel yet.
December 7, 2008
I'll always read whatever Mr. Vachss writes, but his more recent books make me miss the older ones, which had more heart. Two Trains is all plot, with two many characters spread too thinly. I didn't get nearly enough of the protagonist. Still, I like his voice, and his message and mission are consistent.
January 1, 2014
You aren't ready for this. No, really. No one is ready for the amazing turn Andrew Vachss has taken his writing life. And that, of course, is the best part. Two Trains Running is a book that astonishes the reader on many levels.
Known, of course, for the durable Burke series, Vachss here takes his loyal readers down a completely different track. For those just getting on board, the welcome is there for the reading, as this is a totally new creation from Vachss. A historical noir--told in a voice steeped in the knowledge of years, and hardened by them.
Two Trains Running is two weeks in the life of Locke City, somewhere in the non-coastal American Heartland, fall of 1959. A once-prosperous place, brought low by depression, revived in well-protected vice. That vice is ruled by Royal Beaumont, native crime boss. With Italians and Irish trying to muscle their way in to his world, he brings in the enigmatic Walker Dett to sharpen his edge. Mix in various law enforcement agencies with various motives, and a brewing race war. As struggles over, variously, ways of life, love, salvation, and the future of the country erupt, Vachss blends and boils the threads of his story without sentiment, and with clear intent. The result is a work both breath-taking in its action and startling in its heart and soul. The stories you are told, in many cases, are the ones you had no idea you were reading until they were over. There are a couple of those here, too.
Vachss tells the story with no chapters, per se, but in a percussive time-stamping style, that does a couple of things; helps give the various plot-lines a propulsion that is cinematic; It also re-enforces the observational nature of the narration. It's written as a sort of omniscient surveillance of events sans comment. That part is our job. Vachss wants us to look at these events filtered only by our own experience and knowledge, and to see how the pieces fit into the country we think we live in. And by doing so, decide their truth.
According to some early press, part of Vachss' intent was to create a tribute to investigative journalism as a last line in a democracy's defense (no currency there, eh?). He does that not so much in the way he presents Jimmy Procter, Locke City's hotshot reporter, but in the way he tells the story itself. It's a style refined in reportage, betraying no point of view. Just the facts. Third person, and then some.
Walker Dett is a ronin of his times, a soldier without an army, on a path that transcends anything in it. One of Two Trains Running's victories is how his journey provides moments of such extreme dark and light. For every demonstration of his violent gift, there is, upon his introduction to one Tussy Chambers, a stage of a soul opening, that provides the essential counter-balance to the entire story. There are numerous love stories amidst the darkness here, and they all serve to feed the passions at work.
So let's talk about Tussy for a minute, ok? Burke readers, let's just say she's right in there with Blue Belle and Ann O.Dyne as classic Vachss Gals. She is love, faith and temptation. She is irresistible. And of course, the force of her personality becomes a major part of the story Vachss is telling. While we're talking about the "fun stuff", let's mention that Vachss' love affair with the American Automobile is in full fettle here, and adds a precise authenticity to the action.
Vachss has fueled Two Trains Running with some first-rate characters; from the afore-mentioned Royal Beaumont Mountain Man Crime Boss (think Burl Ives in Nick Ray's swamp-noir, "Wind Across The Everglades), to Sherman Layne, the only honest cop in the entire story, who is in love with the town madam.
Vachss nods to other themes familiar in his canon....that families are made not born, forged by action and trust, not blood. That crime is often in the intent, not the deed. Part of the joy to regular readers of his work is seeing how those themes get worked in to his story. It's one of the things that make Andrew Vachss a singular writer in this genre. And it's just a small part of what makes Two Trains Running a singular reading experience.
Known, of course, for the durable Burke series, Vachss here takes his loyal readers down a completely different track. For those just getting on board, the welcome is there for the reading, as this is a totally new creation from Vachss. A historical noir--told in a voice steeped in the knowledge of years, and hardened by them.
Two Trains Running is two weeks in the life of Locke City, somewhere in the non-coastal American Heartland, fall of 1959. A once-prosperous place, brought low by depression, revived in well-protected vice. That vice is ruled by Royal Beaumont, native crime boss. With Italians and Irish trying to muscle their way in to his world, he brings in the enigmatic Walker Dett to sharpen his edge. Mix in various law enforcement agencies with various motives, and a brewing race war. As struggles over, variously, ways of life, love, salvation, and the future of the country erupt, Vachss blends and boils the threads of his story without sentiment, and with clear intent. The result is a work both breath-taking in its action and startling in its heart and soul. The stories you are told, in many cases, are the ones you had no idea you were reading until they were over. There are a couple of those here, too.
Vachss tells the story with no chapters, per se, but in a percussive time-stamping style, that does a couple of things; helps give the various plot-lines a propulsion that is cinematic; It also re-enforces the observational nature of the narration. It's written as a sort of omniscient surveillance of events sans comment. That part is our job. Vachss wants us to look at these events filtered only by our own experience and knowledge, and to see how the pieces fit into the country we think we live in. And by doing so, decide their truth.
According to some early press, part of Vachss' intent was to create a tribute to investigative journalism as a last line in a democracy's defense (no currency there, eh?). He does that not so much in the way he presents Jimmy Procter, Locke City's hotshot reporter, but in the way he tells the story itself. It's a style refined in reportage, betraying no point of view. Just the facts. Third person, and then some.
Walker Dett is a ronin of his times, a soldier without an army, on a path that transcends anything in it. One of Two Trains Running's victories is how his journey provides moments of such extreme dark and light. For every demonstration of his violent gift, there is, upon his introduction to one Tussy Chambers, a stage of a soul opening, that provides the essential counter-balance to the entire story. There are numerous love stories amidst the darkness here, and they all serve to feed the passions at work.
So let's talk about Tussy for a minute, ok? Burke readers, let's just say she's right in there with Blue Belle and Ann O.Dyne as classic Vachss Gals. She is love, faith and temptation. She is irresistible. And of course, the force of her personality becomes a major part of the story Vachss is telling. While we're talking about the "fun stuff", let's mention that Vachss' love affair with the American Automobile is in full fettle here, and adds a precise authenticity to the action.
Vachss has fueled Two Trains Running with some first-rate characters; from the afore-mentioned Royal Beaumont Mountain Man Crime Boss (think Burl Ives in Nick Ray's swamp-noir, "Wind Across The Everglades), to Sherman Layne, the only honest cop in the entire story, who is in love with the town madam.
Vachss nods to other themes familiar in his canon....that families are made not born, forged by action and trust, not blood. That crime is often in the intent, not the deed. Part of the joy to regular readers of his work is seeing how those themes get worked in to his story. It's one of the things that make Andrew Vachss a singular writer in this genre. And it's just a small part of what makes Two Trains Running a singular reading experience.
February 10, 2015
RATING: 3.25
PROTAGONIST: Walker Dett
OCCUPATION: Assassin
SETTING: 1959 Locke City (fictional town in the midwest US)
Locke City is located in the central United States and has been run for decades by Royal Beaumont and his minions. It's the kind of place that becomes a destination if you're interested in gambling or other vices, with the appeal being that you won't be cheated or harassed. A place like that is bound to attract others who want to have the power and rewards of Locke City has to offer. Sal Dioguardi is a Mafia boss who's begun to demand rent on the jukeboxes around town. There's an Irishman by the name of Mickey Shalare who seems to be putting his oar in the water. Royal is an astute and observant man; he hires on an assassin by the name of Walker Dett to help him keep things in line.
Dett makes sure that Dioguardi gets the message by eliminating some of his subordinates. But the truth of the matter is that Locke City in 1959 is a place that is roiling beneath the surface. Even if Dioguardi leaves, it's likely that there will be some other mob man to replace him. At the same time, Shalare wants to work a deal with Beaumont to swing the vote in the upcoming presidential election from Nixon to an Irish Catholic. And there are other disturbing forces at work as well, with white gangs vying for territorial rights and black residents vying for civil rights.
Vachss succeeds at playing out all of these narrative threads and interconnections skillfully. However, I found that various elements of his writing style made the book less than riveting for me. First of all, Vachss focuses on Dett's relationship with a waitress named Tussy Chambers who he meets in Locke City and who he credits with being a "pure" person to whom he can reveal his true self. Far too much time was spent on this relationship angle; it would have been much more suspenseful to focus on Dett doing the job he was hired to do than watching him act like a lovesick schoolboy. And his revelation to Tussy of what has been driving him was alternately moving and hokey.
Secondly, Vachss has an irritating habit when writing dialogue of filling conversations with incomplete sentences, the person listening to whoever is speaking breaking in on their thoughts mid-stream. It wasn't just one character who did that, but a characteristic of the dialogue in general. I began to long for a conversation where both people could speak their thoughts in full! Given Vachss' wide catalog of successful books, I expected to find some excellent prose in action; instead, much of it was insipid or downright mushy. "Ruth whispered words no customer could ever have paid her to say. Then shuddered to an orgasm she didn't believe could exist. Sherman followed right after her, as they mated for life."
Vachss did an excellent job of portraying the warring forces at work in Locke City, the confrontations between the outsiders and the insiders, as well as the introduction of conflict that existed across America at that time. At times, he moved into lecture mode on some of these themes; I felt the book could have benefited from some judicious editing, as there were some long digressions that didn't really move the plot forward. Likewise, there was a huge cast of characters; it was hard to keep them straight after a while.
I credit Vachss for an ambitious undertaking that didn't quite work for me.
PROTAGONIST: Walker Dett
OCCUPATION: Assassin
SETTING: 1959 Locke City (fictional town in the midwest US)
Locke City is located in the central United States and has been run for decades by Royal Beaumont and his minions. It's the kind of place that becomes a destination if you're interested in gambling or other vices, with the appeal being that you won't be cheated or harassed. A place like that is bound to attract others who want to have the power and rewards of Locke City has to offer. Sal Dioguardi is a Mafia boss who's begun to demand rent on the jukeboxes around town. There's an Irishman by the name of Mickey Shalare who seems to be putting his oar in the water. Royal is an astute and observant man; he hires on an assassin by the name of Walker Dett to help him keep things in line.
Dett makes sure that Dioguardi gets the message by eliminating some of his subordinates. But the truth of the matter is that Locke City in 1959 is a place that is roiling beneath the surface. Even if Dioguardi leaves, it's likely that there will be some other mob man to replace him. At the same time, Shalare wants to work a deal with Beaumont to swing the vote in the upcoming presidential election from Nixon to an Irish Catholic. And there are other disturbing forces at work as well, with white gangs vying for territorial rights and black residents vying for civil rights.
Vachss succeeds at playing out all of these narrative threads and interconnections skillfully. However, I found that various elements of his writing style made the book less than riveting for me. First of all, Vachss focuses on Dett's relationship with a waitress named Tussy Chambers who he meets in Locke City and who he credits with being a "pure" person to whom he can reveal his true self. Far too much time was spent on this relationship angle; it would have been much more suspenseful to focus on Dett doing the job he was hired to do than watching him act like a lovesick schoolboy. And his revelation to Tussy of what has been driving him was alternately moving and hokey.
Secondly, Vachss has an irritating habit when writing dialogue of filling conversations with incomplete sentences, the person listening to whoever is speaking breaking in on their thoughts mid-stream. It wasn't just one character who did that, but a characteristic of the dialogue in general. I began to long for a conversation where both people could speak their thoughts in full! Given Vachss' wide catalog of successful books, I expected to find some excellent prose in action; instead, much of it was insipid or downright mushy. "Ruth whispered words no customer could ever have paid her to say. Then shuddered to an orgasm she didn't believe could exist. Sherman followed right after her, as they mated for life."
Vachss did an excellent job of portraying the warring forces at work in Locke City, the confrontations between the outsiders and the insiders, as well as the introduction of conflict that existed across America at that time. At times, he moved into lecture mode on some of these themes; I felt the book could have benefited from some judicious editing, as there were some long digressions that didn't really move the plot forward. Likewise, there was a huge cast of characters; it was hard to keep them straight after a while.
I credit Vachss for an ambitious undertaking that didn't quite work for me.
January 6, 2008
If you like old-school, hard-boiled noirish type crime novels this is for you. Vachss has been writing these types of book for ages. Just to show you what a fan I am of his stuff I've got every book he's written and that numbers to around 18 spots on my bookshelf not including the newest one that I haven't picked up yet. He normally writes about a character named Burke who's usual scenery is the underbelly of NYC where he hijacks scumbags and torments pedophiles and other sexual predators. "Two Trains Running" isn't about Burke. It's about Walker Dett, a hired killer. Three different "gangs" a fighting over territory in a small town in middle America in the 50s. The town is crawling with characters. Madams with hearts of gold. Cops that just want to do the right thing. Cops that don't want to do the right thing. Neo-nazi gay desk men at hotels and black power advocates that masquerade as idiot bellhops. Italian, Irish and Hillbilly crime gangs. The hillbillies are the ones that bring in Dett and the madness ensues. The book careens along like a Humphrey Bogart movie on paper. It's a lot of fun reading about a little town where everyone seems to have their own world beating agenda. A fun place to be when they're trying to kill each other and not you. I can't wait to pick up his new book.
September 11, 2017
Two Trains Running, my first Andrew Vachss read, is a hard one to wrap my head around. It's a novel based in Loche City, a medium to large city somewhere in the midwest. The year is 1959 and the town is gearing up for an inner war, with the likes of organised crime, street gangs, both white and black who are warring amongst themselves, a group of the KKK and even an Aryan Nation neo nazi group.
Royal Beaumont the home grown crime boss who has held power for a long time is beginning to feel the encroaching hands of the mafia starting to nibble away at his holdings. Royal calls in the main character, Walker Dett to help him and that is the spark that ignites the sleeping bomb.
The characters were handled well and the storyline was a good one, but to me the way the novel was laid out in small vignettes with timelines and what seemed to be an endless supply of characters did slightly drag this novel down a bit.
Royal Beaumont the home grown crime boss who has held power for a long time is beginning to feel the encroaching hands of the mafia starting to nibble away at his holdings. Royal calls in the main character, Walker Dett to help him and that is the spark that ignites the sleeping bomb.
The characters were handled well and the storyline was a good one, but to me the way the novel was laid out in small vignettes with timelines and what seemed to be an endless supply of characters did slightly drag this novel down a bit.
January 30, 2019
A very good "noir" novel about a postindustrial town filled with corruption. The main character, hit man Walker Dett, is darkly enigmatic. His "ethics" as he works his way through the underworld labyrinth are fascinating to watch. Although this has many historical details (e.g. description of '50's cars), it's allegorical, not realistic. The reader gets to observe the thinking of each group of crooks/bad guys (Klan, FBI, IRA, Mafia, "hillbillies", police, gangs, politicians) through discussions of their members. The result is a kind of fugal interplay of ideas.
Who ever heard of all of these groups being in one small city? Obviously, verisimilitude is not what this story is about, and it doesn't matter when the surrealism is so stunning.
Who ever heard of all of these groups being in one small city? Obviously, verisimilitude is not what this story is about, and it doesn't matter when the surrealism is so stunning.
March 28, 2011
This book had an edge to it that kept me hooked the whole time. The reader desperately wants to find out who exactly Walker Dett is and what happens to Locke City. With regards to that, it's well-written. However, while I did find this an enjoyable read, I think it's a little too ambitious for its own good, breaking off way more plots than necessary. The author also gets a little too cute with the foreshadowing. Still an interesting and engaging read, not what I expected (gangland wars-type stuff) but satisfied with what I got (a snapshot of socio-economic tensions in a small town in America).
May 20, 2014
Taking a step back from the Burke novels was probably one of the smarter things Vachss has done - Two Trains Running isn't a marked improvement over them (I've come to accept that while I enjoy them, they're not great literature), but it's an interesting variation. The plot shifts between varying characters -- mob bosses, juvenile gang members, etc. (though it mostly focuses on Burke-alike Walker Dett) -- and has a sort of ticking time bomb intensity to it. The late-50s setting is also a nice shift away from Vachss's other novels, and gives the proceedings a bit of a higher-stakes feel to it. With just a little more polish on some of the subplots, this would really be something.
November 6, 2011
Although there is something like one hundred characters in the story (all right, maybe not that many) and some of the time I was reading and didn't know who the heck I was reading about, this is a fun book. Set in 1959, the novel covers gangsters, the Klan, the emerging Civil Rights Movement, prostitutes, and Nazi sympathizers. The central character, Walker Dett, a contract killer, is so likable that he's the reason I was hooked fom the beginning. Shella, the novel by Andrew Vachss that was my first by this author, was spare, simple and also about a hired killer who was oddly likable. This novel is neither spare nor simple but very good.
July 5, 2010
I ordinarily love the books Vachss writes. While good enough to eventually read all the way through, the book is not up to his usual standards. I only read this book after three abortive attempts. If you've not read the Burke books, do so instead or at least first.
January 11, 2013
Long, sprawling novel set in 1959, involving various intersecting plots about political machinations, race war, gang war etc. The contract killer character is interesting, but there's a lot of typical Vachss blather that slows everything down, and it ultimately is just too scattered.
December 28, 2012
It took me forever to slog through this. Parts of it were good but mostly it was just a chore to read. My least favorite Vachss book.
May 27, 2017
suspenseful, fast-paced, and a fun read
December 23, 2023
Call this a soft-boiled Red Harvest.
I’ve heard generally good things about Vachss, and I suspect – from his reputation – that this is one of his weaker offerings. And it’s not that bad; it just blinks in a few places where a steely-eyed stare would have offered more.
We get most of this through the eyes of “Walker Dett,” the nom-de-tough-guy of a hitman imported by the “hillbilly mafia” to help them fight off the Italians trying to squeeze into their longtime turf. There are Irish gangsters involved as well – some with strong ties to the governor – and it’s a tense situation all around.
Walker is the wildcard. He’s good enough at his job that he can take people out of the equation, which leaves that equation unbalanced.
At some point, and I don’t think this rises to spoiler, we learn about his background .
As I say – and as I see after the fact that the back-cover copy says something similar – this is very much in Hammett’s Red Harvest mold. But unlike the Continental Op, who has a sense that he’s deteriorating morally (and whose competence comes to us with what I read an ironic acknowledgement of the limits of the genre), this is all Walker has ever imagined, He has a plan and
The big change is that Walker seems as if he is genuinely in love with Tussy, a hard-luck waitress with almost nothing else going on in his life.
So, bottom line, I won’t write Vachss off after this, but I’ll proceed with skepticism. Solid enough, but bound by genre in ways I’m less and less patient with.
I’ve heard generally good things about Vachss, and I suspect – from his reputation – that this is one of his weaker offerings. And it’s not that bad; it just blinks in a few places where a steely-eyed stare would have offered more.
We get most of this through the eyes of “Walker Dett,” the nom-de-tough-guy of a hitman imported by the “hillbilly mafia” to help them fight off the Italians trying to squeeze into their longtime turf. There are Irish gangsters involved as well – some with strong ties to the governor – and it’s a tense situation all around.
Walker is the wildcard. He’s good enough at his job that he can take people out of the equation, which leaves that equation unbalanced.
At some point, and I don’t think this rises to spoiler, we learn about his background .
As I say – and as I see after the fact that the back-cover copy says something similar – this is very much in Hammett’s Red Harvest mold. But unlike the Continental Op, who has a sense that he’s deteriorating morally (and whose competence comes to us with what I read an ironic acknowledgement of the limits of the genre), this is all Walker has ever imagined, He has a plan and
The big change is that Walker seems as if he is genuinely in love with Tussy, a hard-luck waitress with almost nothing else going on in his life.
So, bottom line, I won’t write Vachss off after this, but I’ll proceed with skepticism. Solid enough, but bound by genre in ways I’m less and less patient with.
March 23, 2018
Vachss receives high praise from Martha Grimes, whose mysteries I like. His book is not easy to follow with a big reveal at the end and small revelations along with way. It's supposed to paint a realistic picture of life in America at the end of the 1950s, but a certain kind of realism--where everyone's got a racket and where violence is the great equalizer. Vachss has been prolific. I'm not certain whether the main character in this novel is part of a series or not. I suspect it is.
May 20, 2017
I don't know why I read this book, other than it came in a bundle of NY Times Best seller list...
I don't know why I persevered in reading this book, the subject matter did not interest me. The list of characters is so long that half way trough the story I totally did not know who belonged to which 'gang' or what the hell was happening.
I don't know why I persevered in reading this book, the subject matter did not interest me. The list of characters is so long that half way trough the story I totally did not know who belonged to which 'gang' or what the hell was happening.
February 5, 2023
Not a pure thriller; the monologues of all the main characters slow the story down a bit too much for that. That does give you a good insight in all the ideas and strategies, however. So all-in-all a good read!
February 12, 2025
To truly follow this book, I would need to reread it with an outline of all the characters. Almost everyone in the tale is a criminal, the hero being a stone-cold killer. Much dialog--mostly man-splaining--with occasional action.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2018
If you're into descriptions of cars and clothes from the 50's, I guess it's worth a read. Otherwise, probably not.
September 17, 2019
Post-war, small town corruption set somewhere in amerika. Just couldn't get into what is said to be Vachss most ambitious work to date.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
May 10, 2021
Used to the Burke novels, so this was a bit different,.
Set in the late 50's, there were a lot of characters to keep straight, but a very good read, never the less.
Set in the late 50's, there were a lot of characters to keep straight, but a very good read, never the less.
July 17, 2022
Read in 2005. Original and compelling.
October 7, 2022
Had me from the start to the end, a bit of a departure from the Burke series
March 12, 2025
Started off like a runaway locomotive. Then a simply awful second half with subplots and characters out of thin air with no relevance to the story. And what’s with all the adverbs? Sloppy writing.
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