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Aftershock #3
Signwave: An Aftershock Novel
Once a mercenary, later an assassin, and now living a different life, Dell has bone-marrow-deep loyalty and protective instincts that know no bounds when it comes to his wife, Dolly, a former battle-field nurse, and their close-knit group of Dolly’s friends and Dell’s allies. When Dolly receives a thinly veiled threat, Dell reverts to his old ways to untangle the background of a prominent local figure, George Byron Benton, whose actions have awakened Dell’s obsessive need for security. This target combines the deadly patience of a gila monster and a complex agenda—including a public life that’s all elaborate disguise. To penetrate Benton’s dense facade, Dell methodically works his way through the only reliable source of news in the area—a blog called Undercurrents . If he manages to track Benton down, Dell will have to decide how far he is willing to go to recapture the sense of safety that Benton has stolen.
With Andrew Vachss’s trademark razor-sharp dialogue and inimitable prose style, SignWave —the third entry in the Aftershock series—is guaranteed to reverberate powerfully long after it has been read.
With Andrew Vachss’s trademark razor-sharp dialogue and inimitable prose style, SignWave —the third entry in the Aftershock series—is guaranteed to reverberate powerfully long after it has been read.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published June 9, 2015
26 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Vachss
138 books890 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 34 reviews
May 30, 2015
A worthy entertainment for its qualities of a thriller with a spare Zen-like quality. Dell is a former mercenary soldier now settled down in a quiet life in rural Oregon with Dolly, the only living person he ever deeply cared about. A ripple on the still waters of his life with her leads to some obsessive investigations behind the scenes for the threat of a shark his paranoid mind might be imagining, Like the game of Battleship, the picture slowly emerges of a cunning beast at work, and he must craft a plan to neutralize the danger.
Dolly community efforts to establish a dog park on some vacant state-owned land outside of town conflicts with other plans to use the land for a logging road. Dolly’s circle, which includes a lot of disadvantaged teenaged girls, uncovers that a company is buying up all the adjacent land and submits it anonymously to a news blog. Then a man who turns out to be a hedge fund manager passes her an ambiguous comment that her “people shouldn’t go around half cocked.” This sounds like a threat to Dell, and the first step of his investigation is to try to understand how the man could know Dolly was a source for the news piece. From this murky scenario, the plot progressively gains solidity as many short chapters add bricks of the wall of comprehension. The crisp sentences and extensive use of dialog makes for an incisive, engaging read.
I am familiar with Vachss from a couple of reads from his Burke series, which have a similar angle on a dark and dangerous hero with a humane bent to help others oppressed by more powerful or evil people. Like Burke, Dell had a tough upbringing and some civilizing influences from key persons who stand in for missing family. I didn’t catch the first two in this series tagged “Aftershock”, but there is enough backstory here to catch up. There is a mythos to his character and his philosophy that was a bit hokey to me. I can’t tell if the author, who works as a lawyer for abuse children, buys into the libertarian outlook and vigilante justice of his heroes. Still, the point that Dell cares for little but Dolly makes his singular focus on defeating any threat to her a believable driving force:
There is no inherent truth in any philosophy. Everything is ‘flexible’ and ‘open to interpretation’. And now so many years later, I am an impossible construct. A force mathematics could not rule; an assassin who once would kill anyone for money and now would forfeit his own life with equal lack of concern. Worse, he would do that only for the one person who could really, truly betray him.
This book was loaned by the publisher as an e-book through the Netgalley ARC program.
Dolly community efforts to establish a dog park on some vacant state-owned land outside of town conflicts with other plans to use the land for a logging road. Dolly’s circle, which includes a lot of disadvantaged teenaged girls, uncovers that a company is buying up all the adjacent land and submits it anonymously to a news blog. Then a man who turns out to be a hedge fund manager passes her an ambiguous comment that her “people shouldn’t go around half cocked.” This sounds like a threat to Dell, and the first step of his investigation is to try to understand how the man could know Dolly was a source for the news piece. From this murky scenario, the plot progressively gains solidity as many short chapters add bricks of the wall of comprehension. The crisp sentences and extensive use of dialog makes for an incisive, engaging read.
I am familiar with Vachss from a couple of reads from his Burke series, which have a similar angle on a dark and dangerous hero with a humane bent to help others oppressed by more powerful or evil people. Like Burke, Dell had a tough upbringing and some civilizing influences from key persons who stand in for missing family. I didn’t catch the first two in this series tagged “Aftershock”, but there is enough backstory here to catch up. There is a mythos to his character and his philosophy that was a bit hokey to me. I can’t tell if the author, who works as a lawyer for abuse children, buys into the libertarian outlook and vigilante justice of his heroes. Still, the point that Dell cares for little but Dolly makes his singular focus on defeating any threat to her a believable driving force:
There is no inherent truth in any philosophy. Everything is ‘flexible’ and ‘open to interpretation’. And now so many years later, I am an impossible construct. A force mathematics could not rule; an assassin who once would kill anyone for money and now would forfeit his own life with equal lack of concern. Worse, he would do that only for the one person who could really, truly betray him.
This book was loaned by the publisher as an e-book through the Netgalley ARC program.
April 21, 2015
Let me begin this review by saying that I'm going to be rereading this book--not in a few months or years, but soon, in the next few days. There is simply too much here to absorb in the kind of one-gulp reading I've given SignWave. As always, Vachss has layered his plot with character development, observations about the world and about people, and an enormous number of lessons that merit careful attention and thoughtful application.
Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that this wealth of additional content weighs down the story. Vachss is a master at balancing reflection and motion. His detours into the past always serve to illuminate not only his protagonist's history and education, but the problem he is facing at the time. There is nothing extraneous in this novel--no padding, no fat; it's all meat. You can read it as a story for simple enjoyment, or you can really sink your teeth into it and come away with enough to keep you thinking and learning for a long time.
As always, the main character, Dell, is engaging in a scary "don't cross that line" sort of way. His devotion to his wife is the one thing that makes it possible for him to share space with "normal" people. As much as Vachss lets the reader like and admire Dell, he also never lets the reader forget that Dell's background makes him one dangerous hombre. For example, in the first novel in this series, Vachss introduced two characters, Mary Lou and Franklin, who have continued into the second and third novels. Because of Dell's actions in the first novel, Franklin will do anything for him. Mary Lou has also proven her dependability, yet Dell acknowledges that if his wife were in danger and saving her meant killing one or both of these characters, he would do so without a blink. Vachss never lets you forget that Dell, even more than Burke (the protagonist of Vachss's longest series), defends a territory that is strictly limited to his family--in this case, only Dolly.
At the same time, these novels seem to be showing the very slow development of a family of choice. In the Burke series, the reader is presented with Burke's family as a fait accompli. Seeing *how* such a family comes about could be a great boon to those whose families of origin leave them in need of a family of choice. If more books follow in this series, it will be interesting to see how this family plays out.
Vachss provides enough interesting and complex characters around his protagonist to serve as foils for him and also to provide other points of view and insights that Dell's background would not allow. Dolly continues to grow into a more interesting character and her unflagging dedication to making her community a better place does more than simply provide a catalyst for the plot. She allows Vachss to address issues far beyond those that would register for Dell. Mack, the social worker introduced in the second novel of the series, plays a smaller role here, but still serves as both a student for Dell and an alternative way of looking at things. In short, there are no extraneous characters here. Each one plays a role both in the plot and the education of the reader.
And yet, in classic Vachss style, all these characters and all the threads of the plot come together to create a tapestry that is far more than its components originally suggest. Will you have to work at times to follow each thread through the novel--probably, unless you're far smarter than I. Will you be glad you made the effort--absolutely.
Disclosure: I received an ARC of SignWave from the publisher. My opinions are entirely my own.
Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that this wealth of additional content weighs down the story. Vachss is a master at balancing reflection and motion. His detours into the past always serve to illuminate not only his protagonist's history and education, but the problem he is facing at the time. There is nothing extraneous in this novel--no padding, no fat; it's all meat. You can read it as a story for simple enjoyment, or you can really sink your teeth into it and come away with enough to keep you thinking and learning for a long time.
As always, the main character, Dell, is engaging in a scary "don't cross that line" sort of way. His devotion to his wife is the one thing that makes it possible for him to share space with "normal" people. As much as Vachss lets the reader like and admire Dell, he also never lets the reader forget that Dell's background makes him one dangerous hombre. For example, in the first novel in this series, Vachss introduced two characters, Mary Lou and Franklin, who have continued into the second and third novels. Because of Dell's actions in the first novel, Franklin will do anything for him. Mary Lou has also proven her dependability, yet Dell acknowledges that if his wife were in danger and saving her meant killing one or both of these characters, he would do so without a blink. Vachss never lets you forget that Dell, even more than Burke (the protagonist of Vachss's longest series), defends a territory that is strictly limited to his family--in this case, only Dolly.
At the same time, these novels seem to be showing the very slow development of a family of choice. In the Burke series, the reader is presented with Burke's family as a fait accompli. Seeing *how* such a family comes about could be a great boon to those whose families of origin leave them in need of a family of choice. If more books follow in this series, it will be interesting to see how this family plays out.
Vachss provides enough interesting and complex characters around his protagonist to serve as foils for him and also to provide other points of view and insights that Dell's background would not allow. Dolly continues to grow into a more interesting character and her unflagging dedication to making her community a better place does more than simply provide a catalyst for the plot. She allows Vachss to address issues far beyond those that would register for Dell. Mack, the social worker introduced in the second novel of the series, plays a smaller role here, but still serves as both a student for Dell and an alternative way of looking at things. In short, there are no extraneous characters here. Each one plays a role both in the plot and the education of the reader.
And yet, in classic Vachss style, all these characters and all the threads of the plot come together to create a tapestry that is far more than its components originally suggest. Will you have to work at times to follow each thread through the novel--probably, unless you're far smarter than I. Will you be glad you made the effort--absolutely.
Disclosure: I received an ARC of SignWave from the publisher. My opinions are entirely my own.
April 22, 2019
Signwave: An Aftershock Novel (Aftershock, #3)
by Andrew Vachss (Goodreads Author)
The central character, Dell, had a terrible childhood, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, later became a killer for hire, and is now married to a woman who served in Doctors Without Borders locations. Totally far-fetched. Most of the characters are generic; otherwise, they are simply not believable. I'm mildly ashamed to admit I read the whole thing.
by Andrew Vachss (Goodreads Author)
The central character, Dell, had a terrible childhood, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, later became a killer for hire, and is now married to a woman who served in Doctors Without Borders locations. Totally far-fetched. Most of the characters are generic; otherwise, they are simply not believable. I'm mildly ashamed to admit I read the whole thing.
January 16, 2016
I think it was Miles Davis who said of Ahmad Jamal that the key to his music was the "space between the notes." He meant that Jamal trusted the listener to fill in the pauses....and the tension came from the fact that the notes didn't always go where you anticipated.
Andrew Vachss' "Wave" series is written like that. Vachss does not write in a straightforward "man bites dog" narrative style. Rather, it is the space between the words that do the work. He writes like his readers are long time lovers, who can complete each other's thoughts after a few words. So he writes in partial sentences; the point left ambiguous; trusting the reader to fill in the gaps, and sometimes surprising us by going somewhere we weren't expecting.
In Sign Wave, Dolly casually tells Dell that Mason, a recent arrival in town with a lot of money, had told her not to go off half-cocked. After treating us to a soliloquy on how absurd it is to go around with a half-cocked gun, it is clear that Dell does not consider this remark casual at all. Rather, he considers it a threat to Dolly--which is not allowed in his world. Is he overacting? This really obvious question is actually never answered, but it doesn't matter. Dell's reality is that of the jungle--only by striking first can you assure you won't be struck.
So he is off, digging into Mason's life, and pretty much everything he touched which could lead back to Dolly. After two hundred pages of brief action packed sequences interspersed with planning, during which we learn more and more about Dell and jungle warfare (wherever that jungle may be), Dell is sure Dolly is safe....and both he and we have learned something more about him.
Excellent book, as always.
Note: h/t to Trisha Snowden for pointing out the connection in the story to Chicago's own Uptown!
Andrew Vachss' "Wave" series is written like that. Vachss does not write in a straightforward "man bites dog" narrative style. Rather, it is the space between the words that do the work. He writes like his readers are long time lovers, who can complete each other's thoughts after a few words. So he writes in partial sentences; the point left ambiguous; trusting the reader to fill in the gaps, and sometimes surprising us by going somewhere we weren't expecting.
In Sign Wave, Dolly casually tells Dell that Mason, a recent arrival in town with a lot of money, had told her not to go off half-cocked. After treating us to a soliloquy on how absurd it is to go around with a half-cocked gun, it is clear that Dell does not consider this remark casual at all. Rather, he considers it a threat to Dolly--which is not allowed in his world. Is he overacting? This really obvious question is actually never answered, but it doesn't matter. Dell's reality is that of the jungle--only by striking first can you assure you won't be struck.
So he is off, digging into Mason's life, and pretty much everything he touched which could lead back to Dolly. After two hundred pages of brief action packed sequences interspersed with planning, during which we learn more and more about Dell and jungle warfare (wherever that jungle may be), Dell is sure Dolly is safe....and both he and we have learned something more about him.
Excellent book, as always.
Note: h/t to Trisha Snowden for pointing out the connection in the story to Chicago's own Uptown!
December 1, 2015
Dell is former legionnaire, soldier, and assassin. Even that list of past lives doesn't begin to capture his toughness, though his affection for his wife (herself a former battlefield nurse) is very real. She is involved in a community group's attempt to build a dog park on land that it is purchasing piecemeal. Someone else wants the land badly for an industrial purpose, so she is indirectly warned off by a community mover and shaker. Dell sees the indirect warning for what it is: a full-bore threat against his wife. Drawing on his formidable skills, absolute ruthlessness, and unshakeable sense of purpose, Dell neutralizes the threat. Much like Burke in Vachss's long series of gritty urban thrillers, Dell has found a family and is determined to protect it. To get a sense of what is at stake, it would be useful to read the first two books in the "AFtershock" series plus any two of the early Burke books. Individual books, like this one, may get three stars, but the whole body of his work is worth four if you've got the belly for it.
September 30, 2015
I've been an Andrew Vachss fan long enough that I no longer bother reading jacket descriptions. The mere fact of a new book is enough to get me reaching for my wallet. The plots don't really matter--not that they aren't good; Vachss is too much of a craftsman to let that slide. What keeps me coming back is that lean, mean prose. His language is so precise, and he can imply things with a single sentence that other writers would take paragraphs to cover. His prose gets so minimal it's almost subliminal at times. To call his novels "hard boiled" is to do them an injustice as he takes the form to new levels. You've almost certainly never read anyone like Andrew Vachss, and if you have, I'd love to know. Anyway, this is the third novel featuring ex-mercenary Dell, doing what he does best, and it's excellent as always.
September 1, 2024
Signwave (Aftershock #3) by Andrew Vachss (Pantheon Books 2015) (Fiction-Thriller) (3985).
Signwave (Aftershock #3) was the third and final installment in the author’s short “Aftershock” fictional series. This is one of if not the final book the author wrote before his passing; it was also the final Andrew Vachss work that I had not read. The literary world will miss his style and will mourn his passing.
Signwave (Aftershock #3) finds our protagonists Dell and Dolly at home until Dell perceives that Dolly is under threat from an innocent-appearing outside source (having to do with a mutual fund and a dog park). And from that point on, Signwave follows the pattern Vachss established in the “Aftershock” series: when Dell perceives that Dolly is under threat, Dell removes the danger.
As far as this reader is concerned, Vachss retired at the right time, for this series seemed to be running on fumes.
My rating: 7/10, finished 8/31/24 (3985).
February 3, 2021
I did not realize this was the third in a series when I got it in a book bundle, perhaps that's why I had trouble getting into it. Signwave (AfterShock #3), by Andrew Vachss was about a former mercenary who has now retired and is living with the wife he adores. His wife is politically active and gets on someones bad side. A threat is made and the mercenary sets out to protect his wife. He has to unravel a mystery or two along the way, but it's all very cold and dry. If you like procedurals I suggest starting with the first in the series (as I always would anyway).
August 6, 2019
This series has always been a little too mellow and contemplative for my tastes. It lacks a certain amount of focus and narrative flow that was a lot better handled in Vachss' other books. This volume in particular was boring and fragmented in a way that made it a real chore to finish. Two stars on Goodreads means "it was okay" and that's about all I can say about this series.
October 20, 2020
Let's see...no chapters and goes from present to past and back again. Dell is an ex mercenary. Someone threatens his wife over a dog park and he murders them.. Ridiculous story line. Lots of honey and baby. Just blah.
August 7, 2024
The writing was better than the previous novel, but repetitive.
The story, despite all my efforts, I just could not figure out.
Lots of things just didn't add up or make sense.
It seemed like overkill for no reason.
The story, despite all my efforts, I just could not figure out.
Lots of things just didn't add up or make sense.
It seemed like overkill for no reason.
December 4, 2025
Too much time spent rehashing events in earlier books of the series.
Read much of his early works years ago. Maintains the same format. Outsiders/ causalities of American society coming together to form their own families, families that quietly kill to protect one another.
Read much of his early works years ago. Maintains the same format. Outsiders/ causalities of American society coming together to form their own families, families that quietly kill to protect one another.
March 5, 2018
Scattered......... lacked something.... not sure what ?!
October 13, 2023
Writing was good, as with the other books; however, this is a very short book and it spends a lot of time on anything but the main plot. 4 stars but the ending just seemed… lazy
January 6, 2025
I just couldn't engage with this book.the one star is a personal thing. It's rating my opinion, not the quality of the writing or the story.
July 12, 2015
Dell would do anything for Dolly. Dell met Dolly, a nurse serving with Doctors without Borders in war-torn Africa, when Dolly helped save the life of a badly-wounded mercenary soldier who had never before known tenderness or caring. That mercenary, merely one among the many dead and wounded who wound up at the only medical facility in the heart of the jungle, was the man Dolly would eventually marry. Dolly didn’t know that at the time she first saved Dell’s life, but Dell did.
Dell learned about loyalty in the French Foreign Legion. He served five long years in The Legion and was taught many useful things. Like loyalty, weaponry, and ways to kill without being seen and without regret or remorse. Life in the Legion boiled down to kill or be killed. It didn’t matter who you killed. All that mattered was that you killed them first before they killed you.
Now Dell and Dolly have retired from their former lives and live on the Oregon coast where they own some land near the edge of a forest. Dell had wisely invested most of the money he’d earned as a mercenary soldier, so Dolly and Dell can live comfortably without working regular day jobs. If truth be told, Dell is actually quite wealthy. But no one else needs to know that, not even Dolly.
What Dolly does know about Dell and what Dell knows about Dolly is they are both fiercely loyal to each other, to their few human friends, and to the flora and fauna they share their Oregon wilderness home with.
That in a nutshell, is the basic premise behind Andrew Vachss’ enjoyable Aftershock series of laid-back thrillers. Told entirely from Dell’s first-person POV, all three novels (Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave) have essentially the same plot: whenever someone or something threatens Dolly or her world, Dell calls on his considerable knowledge, skills, and resources to make the problem simply disappear. But first, Dell must solve the mystery and discover the real source of the problem.
The growing cast of recurring characters—each with his or her own unique abilities and problems—keeps readers reading while Dell investigates and solves the mystery. In Signwave (Pantheon, June 2015, 253 pages, $26.95) Dell calls on MaryLou and Franklin, Johnny and Martin, Mack and Bridgette, and Rascal and Minnie to help Dolly and Dell save their beloved neck of the woods from being exploited by ruthless con men. This time the body count is minimal. Can Dell out-con the con artists? Do bears defecate in the woods?
What Vachss builds in these novels is a growing sense of family that Dell never experienced as a child on the streets of Paris. Luc and Patrice were the closest Dell ever came to family, and they both died. Death was the only constant in Dell’s life until Dell met Dolly. Then everything changed. Now Dell has a real family. And heaven help anyone who tries to mess with any of them because Dell is fiercely loyal to all of them.
I’m now a loyal reader of novels by Andrew Vachss, and I think you will be too once you discover Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave.
Dell learned about loyalty in the French Foreign Legion. He served five long years in The Legion and was taught many useful things. Like loyalty, weaponry, and ways to kill without being seen and without regret or remorse. Life in the Legion boiled down to kill or be killed. It didn’t matter who you killed. All that mattered was that you killed them first before they killed you.
Now Dell and Dolly have retired from their former lives and live on the Oregon coast where they own some land near the edge of a forest. Dell had wisely invested most of the money he’d earned as a mercenary soldier, so Dolly and Dell can live comfortably without working regular day jobs. If truth be told, Dell is actually quite wealthy. But no one else needs to know that, not even Dolly.
What Dolly does know about Dell and what Dell knows about Dolly is they are both fiercely loyal to each other, to their few human friends, and to the flora and fauna they share their Oregon wilderness home with.
That in a nutshell, is the basic premise behind Andrew Vachss’ enjoyable Aftershock series of laid-back thrillers. Told entirely from Dell’s first-person POV, all three novels (Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave) have essentially the same plot: whenever someone or something threatens Dolly or her world, Dell calls on his considerable knowledge, skills, and resources to make the problem simply disappear. But first, Dell must solve the mystery and discover the real source of the problem.
The growing cast of recurring characters—each with his or her own unique abilities and problems—keeps readers reading while Dell investigates and solves the mystery. In Signwave (Pantheon, June 2015, 253 pages, $26.95) Dell calls on MaryLou and Franklin, Johnny and Martin, Mack and Bridgette, and Rascal and Minnie to help Dolly and Dell save their beloved neck of the woods from being exploited by ruthless con men. This time the body count is minimal. Can Dell out-con the con artists? Do bears defecate in the woods?
What Vachss builds in these novels is a growing sense of family that Dell never experienced as a child on the streets of Paris. Luc and Patrice were the closest Dell ever came to family, and they both died. Death was the only constant in Dell’s life until Dell met Dolly. Then everything changed. Now Dell has a real family. And heaven help anyone who tries to mess with any of them because Dell is fiercely loyal to all of them.
I’m now a loyal reader of novels by Andrew Vachss, and I think you will be too once you discover Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave.
July 2, 2015
I love the work of Andrew Vachss, but it's sometimes hard to get into his series work. I liked the Burke books, but I always preferred the stand-alones. I can't really get into the Cross books. But the Aftershock series? I'm all in. Dell is the usual Vachss protagonist, but there's so much more to him. I love the way his bad-old-days history is interwoven with his current day events (sometimes showing that the bad old days aren't quite so far behind him). It's a wonder to behold him trying to leave it all behind, all except for the basic instinct to survive and protect his wife Dolly, but things just keep happening to bring him back into the violent mercenary lifestyle of old. This time, it's a kinda-sorta threat that on the surface doesn't look like much, but the deeper he looks into it, the more he realizes that Dolly's utopia is being threatened on a darker scale. Dell will go to great lengths to take care of any problem that might destroy Dolly, as he proves yet again. If you like your fiction dark, gritty and very questionable, look no further.
April 1, 2016
I was sick while reading this but even so.... it seemed disjointed and a number of mini plots seemed to start but then be abandoned. I get the feeling that the author was using these to show more about Dolly by introducing yet leaving to the imagination what happened with these other bits. I think he also was trying to escape the "vacuum " where life stands still on all other fronts for the main characters even though that is never true. Instead of leaving it to our subconscious that regular day to day life keeps passing, we get these little unrelated highlights to remind us.
I still enjoyed the story but in the end, I found myself confused about why did the events need to play out as they did.
I still enjoyed the story but in the end, I found myself confused about why did the events need to play out as they did.
June 20, 2015
I have been a fan of Mr. Vachss' work since a bookseller first handed me a copy of Shella fresh out of the box. Since that day I have bought at least one copy of each of his books on publication day.
While I have not taken to this new series as deeply as I had the Burke books; however, they are powerful narratives that deal with things most people refuse to acknowledge. These books are tiny Trojan Horses, hiding a message in the guise of a page-turner.
Vachss for me is a "must read", and volume was no exception.
While I have not taken to this new series as deeply as I had the Burke books; however, they are powerful narratives that deal with things most people refuse to acknowledge. These books are tiny Trojan Horses, hiding a message in the guise of a page-turner.
Vachss for me is a "must read", and volume was no exception.
July 20, 2015
Not sure what to think about Signwave,. The main character is obsessive beyond belief about the very few things (people) that matter to him. Dolly (his girlfriend), their privacy and security, and very little else. So, when both are threatened, he reverts back to the assassin's skills that he used to employ. Most of the novel is about the slow, implacable, step-by-step process leading to the inevitable deaths of those who threatened his and Dolly's security. It's not a particularly action-packed book, but somehow strangely compelling once begun. I think just to see what he does next.
July 5, 2015
Of his series, I would have to say the Dell/Dolly books are my least favorite. This felt like it was half back story, half the book he was trying to put out now. Don't get me wrong, Andrew Vachss has been, and always will be, on my short list of personal heroes. But this wasn't the strongest card in the deck, to be sure.
November 12, 2015
This is an angry pile of words set in a remarkable style. The author put lots of energy and resources into a story that shut me out. One-dimension characters, no real sense of place, stupid technology references, no effect of mystery. That's my opinion, and mine alone; many people sympathize with this author as a hero. He may be heroic, but I did not get it from this story.
June 22, 2015
Vachss has a unique style and this book displays it well. You barely even know what the mystery is until the end of his work. This third book in the Aftershock series is much better than the second and leaves you hopeful for more.
Read
July 12, 2015Dell, the former Legionnaire, mercenary and assassin lives in Oregon where he is devoted to providing a loving and serene life for his former battle field nurse wife. When a slimy banker type make a veiled threat over some land, the professional side of Dell emerges.
dreaded-dnf
September 18, 2015I'm DNF'ing this audio book. For whatever reason the narrator and/or the story is not working for me.
Perhaps I should stick with the format in which I read and enjoyed Andrew Vachss' other stories...which was actual reading and not audio.
No rating or review given.
Perhaps I should stick with the format in which I read and enjoyed Andrew Vachss' other stories...which was actual reading and not audio.
No rating or review given.
September 25, 2015
Good story in all, but I feel the main plot of the story was lost somewhere and had to be wrapped up too quickly. I also think that reading all the books back-back may have detracted a little bit from the informational flash backs. All in all still enjoyable.
July 7, 2015
Good continuation of the series.
May 20, 2015
Del and Dolly left Africa behind and moved to Oregon. It was Dolly's dream and Del's job is to make Dolly happy. When someone threatens her happiness, Del knows how to make it disappear.
July 27, 2015
I have been a fan of Mr. Vachss for years, starting with the Burke series. Tense, disturbing, this is no exception.
July 13, 2015
Quite good. I now want to read the series.
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