[In the following excerpt, Lehmann-Haupt criticizes Blossom for a number of problematic plot elements.]

Blossom is Andrew Vachss's fifth crime novel, after Flood, Strega, Blue Belle and Hard Candy. Mr. Vachss (pronounced VAX) is a lawyer in private practice specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse cases, so it's understandable that his tough-guy hero, Burke, concentrates on fighting people who prey on the lives of children.

But in Blossom, Mr. Vachss seems so eager to show off his specialty that much of his plot is gratuitous. While busy impressing the reader with the squalor and sordidness of juvenile life on the streets of New York City, Burke gets a call from Virgil, a former prison mate of Burke's who now lives in Indiana.

It seems that Virgil's young nephew, Lloyd, has been implicated in the sniper shooting of some teen-age lovers, and he's just disturbed enough about sex to be a plausible suspect. Could Burke come and check Lloyd out and maybe help him out of his jam? Burke could indeed: "Virgil had called at the right time. New York was always hard, but now," thanks to a newspaper personal ad suggesting pedophilia that Burke has just read, "it was ugly."

In fact Burke will not only convince himself of Lloyd's innocence, by palpating the boy's battered libido as only he can do, but he will also prove that Lloyd is guiltless by catching the real sniper. Three problems, however, now afflict Mr. Vachss's plot.

First, certain members of the police also become convinced of Lloyd's innocence, thereby weakening the urgency of the actual perpetrator's capture. Second, Burke begins to hound the real sniper by means that depend too strongly on instinct. One understands that there's little to distinguish the criminal mind from the policeman's; but in Mr. Vachss's handling of this truism there are a few too many lines about Burke's knowing freaks as nobody else does.

"You're scaring me," Burke's lover, Blossom, tells him long after the reader has grasped the idea. "Your voice. Like you're … him. Like you see what he saw."

Finally, the climax of Blossom is about what you expect it to be. True, there's one small twist, but it obscures more problems than it solves. Otherwise, what happens is precisely what you expect. Since you've been imagining it for a hundred pages or so, it is bound to seem disappointing.

Mr. Vachss is full of good ideas and a keen appreciation of human depravity, particularly as it affects children. But in Blossom, at least, his expertise seems two-dimensional. He paints the human soul gray, and that grayness suggests nothing so much as fog.