SOURCE: "Disturbed Avenger," in Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1989, p. 5.

In the following review, Dretzka provides a brief summary of Hard Candy and praises Vachss for his exploration into the darker side of human nature.

Andrew Vachss' crime novels—all of which feature Burke, an unlicensed Manhattan P.I. and scam artist who doubles as an avenging angel—are as unsettling a collection of books as one is likely to find.

His novels, as cleverly scripted as any currently in the genre, are less about solving crimes than they are about forcing readers to come to grips with the cvil around them. Like Jim Thompson in such works as The Killer Inside Me, Vachss puts that evil under a microscope, revealing aspects of the human character that most of us gladly choose to ignore.

Using their brains more often than their brawn, Burke and his motley band of urban guerrillas...