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Flood  By  cover art

Flood

By: Andrew Vachss
Narrated by: Christopher Lane
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Publisher's summary

Burke's newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her - so she can kill him with her bare hands.

In this thriller, Andrew Vachss's renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child's murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements.
Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest - and Vachss at the peak of his form.

More mayhem? Listen to another Burke thriller.
©2009 Andrew Vachss (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Flood

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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    173
  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • 4 Stars
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Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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    159
  • 4 Stars
    82
  • 3 Stars
    51
  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Noir!

Think "Sin City." (If you have not yet seen the remarkable 2005 movie, "Sin City," see if you can rent it or borrow it. If you like "Sin City," you will like "Flood.") Imagine Clive Owen playing Burke. Somebody (Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez) should film this book. Talk about New York's 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙮 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙮! "Flood" combines the hard-boiled detective fiction of the '40s and '50s (think Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler on steroids) -- including all the smoking (OMG, Burke, will you quit smoking before you kill yourself?) with "Sin City"'s over-the-top noir -- including the (unintentionally?) funny male sexual fantasies. Our protagonist, Burke (just one name, thank you very much ... how cool is 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩?) has had a hard life, which has made him tough and cynical. He now mixes with the dregs of society -- the hookers (with hearts of gold, of course), the thieves, the con artists, the convicts, the rejects, the bottom-feeders, and the low-lifes. But wait: Burke has 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨! You will enjoy watching him take out the trash. What you need to know about author Andrew Vachss is that he is a practicing attorney who devotes himself to protecting abused children; and his protagonist in the Burke series had been abused in childhood. Now Burke deals out revenge to all abusers. I rank narrator Christopher Lane as one of my favorite voice actors: He has a beautiful voice 𝙖𝙣𝙙 chops. I liked "Flood" so much that, before I had even finished listening to it, I went ahead and purchased the next audiobook in the series, "Strega," to which I have almost finished listening now. I recommend "Flood" to any aficionado of old-fashioned, hard-boiled noir.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

This is a great book!

I love this book; I listened to Straga before I bought this book on sale and must say that it was a much better book then Straga. I'm glad that I gave the author another shot and I'm going to go through and listen to his others. I'm the kind of reader/listener that once I find author I like I stick with them. (Robert Parker, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, etc.)
As for this book, as the previous person wrote, Flood is not for the faint at heart. It is very graphic and almost all the characters, most notable Burke are extremely flawed. But the thing about Burke is although he operates on the wrong side of the law; he does the right thing in a world that few people would even go into. Bad people can do bad things for the right reason, that's Burke.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Pretty good - I will try some more of the series.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I like the various mix of characters and hope to see more of them. Didn't really like the standard (in too many series) description of the amazing martial artist that apparently live only to assist the main character - also pretty predictable group of bad guys - but remember this was written before so many used the same computer (confused also with telecom) genius living deep in the ground. And the poor dog never got any exercise so how could he stay in shape. But what the heck this is fiction and once I got into the first few chapters I didn't stop till it was done. So I liked it a lot, warts and all.

What about Christopher Lane???s performance did you like?

I loved the change in voice for mama! Sounds like a lot of my friends from years gone by. good voices changes without making me forget the story.

Was Flood worth the listening time?

Yes - most likely will listen to it again in a few years.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not quite noir, not quite Bond, not quite 4 stars

Well... I actually kind of liked it. It's not quite noir (but is pretty close) and not quite James Bond (but also pretty close). The main character is resourceful and creative and dangerous and human all at once. Not to mention the fact that he had an "in" with everyone in the story (prostitutes, newspapers, police, genius - heck, he even had an "in" with the guard dogs).

There is a bit of dated-ness to the story (boomboxes, etc) and a bit of 80s stereotypes (pimps, etc) and an overuse of the term "freaks" for pretty much everyone in the story other than the main character and his buddies. Not saying that there aren't a lot of freaks, but... it was a bit excessive that Burke would run into so many in the course of his activities.

The story had the resolution you'd expect it to have and the plot moved enough that you're never bored waiting for something to happen, and the author kept his personal politics to a minimum...

The narrator was pretty good - he did different "accents" which were, for the most part, pretty good and all the characters voices were distinct so you always knew who was talking.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Deeper than it seems

Part of me wants to write a dissertation on this book. It appears to be a typical noir detective novel with a dame going to see a hard-luck private investigator to find a man, only in this case she describes the person she seeks as a "child rapist." It was written in the mid-1980s after Vachss wrote a nonfiction book about violent juvenile offenders and nobody really was interested in it. So he took his advocacy for abused children and put it in a detective thriller set in the porn/prostitution world of New York City — oh, and he also advocates for dog breeds viewed as dangerous. The detective — and the author — come off like condescending jerks who prefer to be white knights, as opposed to being allies, with those who aren't as privileged, but I think that would be a misreading. The main protagonist characters are diverse — one is deaf; one is a woman of color, another is a transgender woman, who is always treated with respect and the proper pronouns used, which was extremely unusual 30 years ago. In the end, the book is "just" a vigilante revenge tale but it's doing interesting things within the too-often limited genre of the crime novel. I enjoyed it enough that I've already picked up five more books in the series.

The audio narration is great except for some of the voices of the non-white characters are a bit too stereotyped.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

dont bother

not worth a credit, or worth the time to listen. A real disappointment for me.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story. Not for the faint of heart.

Where does Flood rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a good listen but I didn't feel the "depth" in this book that I have in many others. Still...it was a good story.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

It moved along well.

Any additional comments?

Interesting author with his own story.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Details of a Sick World

In the intro, the author says that while his writing was once criticized for being an exageration of malignant child sex abuse, current news headlines prove that his portrayals are all too true. Get it... "His portrayals"? How far into hell do you have to go to fully identify a character as "a maggot-filled demon"? I got though the 1st half without the bile rising more than a couple of times; but, early into the 2nd half, it was clear that the gates of hell were fully open. I personally don't care to fill my mind with detailed descriptions of human depravity. He's correct that we already hear the accounts on the evening news. Who want to read a book that provides detailed re-enactments of those crimes. To be fair, maybe the author slammed the gates shut at the last moment. I did not go further to find out.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Fiction Mirrors Reality

Where does Flood rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've read some of the books by A. Vachss before and how they came about. I love the HORROR genre but this fiction mirrors true horror. Sends shivers up my spine how things like this really happen.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Flood?

One the more memorable moments was when the author describes how innocents can be manipulated to the dark side of drugs and prostitution.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I would have loved to listen to it in one sitting but then it would have been over sooner. Nice and slow makes a better story.

Any additional comments?

I look forward to continue the saga.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Great Narrator

Christopher Lane sets the tone excellently. None of the following narrators compare or live up to Vachss writing.

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2 people found this helpful