A Bomb Built in Hell: Wesley's Story (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Wesley, who appeared in a number of Vachss’ legendarily dark Burke novels, is the protagonist of this hard-bitten tale written in 1972, more than a decade before the first Burke novel appeared. It’s the story of an orphan who, by the mid-1950s, had spent much of his life in New York’s juvenile-detention system before graduating to maximum security. There he meets Carmine, a tough old murderer who educates him to be a better criminal. Wesley comes to see himself as Carmine’s son and ultimately as the instrument of Carmine’s vengeance. Wesley does his time and, as per Carmine’s instructions, becomes a professional hit man. A Bomb Built in Hell presages motifs Vachss employed in the Burke novels, but even crime fans unfamiliar with Burke can relish it. Wesley is utterly remorseless, and the story is told in the coldest and sparest of prose. It also features telling period details—e.g., the tawdry and seamy Times Square area of the time, and the homeless who rushed to “clean” the windshields of cars stopped at Bowery traffic lights. --Thomas Gaughan