If you are as intense as I am, sometimes the only rest you can get is via a concentrated dose of intensely dark crime fiction, a sort of literary homoeopathy. None gets darker than Andrew Vachss, especially in his Burke series. I am up to my neck in Blue Belle now. Relaxing is not the right word for it – when you can’t put a book down, the focus takes up a lot of energy, and in Vachss’ world there is no letting go of the tension. But it is satisfying. The world Vachss describes is a blasted wasteland of New York hustlers and transexuals and pimps, cons and ex-cons; the law of the urban jungle rules, and it ain’t fair and it ain’t right. Emotions are so controlled they are padlocked in a safe and thrown in the Hudson. Here, trust is the only thing worth living for, and dying for, and betrayal of trust the only thing worth killing for, you know the score. Burke, an outlaw’s outlaw, an avenger of children who have been abused, takes you to the edge of your tolerance for cruelty and suffering and yet manages to dredge up a deep understanding for even the most fucked-up of low-lifes, right before they have to die. Another writer who doesn’t believe in evil, but in damaged goods. An acquired taste that turns your stomach before you get your kicks. Like unfiltered tobacco.