Burke

In Andrew Vachss’s tautly engrossing novel, Burke is given a purse full of dirty money to find the infamous Ghost Van that is cutting a lethal swath among the teenage prostitutes in the hood. He also gets help in the form of a stripper named Belle, whose moves on the runway are outclassed only by what she can do in a getaway car.

n this mercilessly compelling thriller, Burke - the private eye, sting artist, and occasional hit man who metes out a cruelly ingenious vengeance on those who victimize children - is up against a soft-spoken messiah who may be rescuing runaways or recruiting them for his own hideous purposes. But in doing so Burke becomes a target for an entire Mafia family, a whore with a heart of cyanide, and a contract killer as implacable as a heart-seeking missile.

In the figure of Burke, Andrew Vachss has given contemporary crime fiction one of its most mesmerizing characters. An abused child raised in orphanages, foster homes, and prisons, Burke is a career criminal and outlaw who steals and scams for a living. But he draws the line at the psychopaths and predators who stalk children. Sometimes he draws that line in blood.

What — or who — could turn a gifted little boy into a murderous thing that calls itself "Satan’s Child"? In search of an answer, a man named Burke travels from a festering welfare hotel to a neat frame house where a voodoo priestess presides over a congregation of assassins. For this vigilante and unlicensed private eye has made it his business to defend the small victims whom the law has failed — even a child who has been made into a killer.

Investigating an epidemic of apparent suicides among the teenagers of a wealthy suburb, Burke discovers a sinister connection between the anguish of the young and the activities of an elite sadomasochistic underground.

In Burke, Andrew Vachss gave readers of crime fiction a hero they could believe in, an avenger whose sense of justice was forged behind bars and tempered on New York’s meanest streets. In this blistering thriller, Burke is drawn into his ugliest case yet, one that involves an underground network of abused women and the sleekly ingenious stalkers who’ve marked them as their personal victims. Burke’s client is Crystal Beth, a beautiful outlaw with a tattoo on her face and a mission burned into her heart. She’s trying to shield one of her charges from a vengeful ex with fetishes for Nazism and torture.

When his girlfriend, Crystal Beth, is gunned down at a gay rights rally in Central Park, Burke, the underground man-for-hire and expert hunter of predators, vows vengeance. But someone beats him to the task: a shadowy killer who calls himself Homo Erectus and who seems determined to wipe gay bashers from the face of the earth. As the killer’s body count rises, most citizens are horrified, but a few see him as a hero, and they hire Burke to track him down... and help him escape.

Career criminal Burke’s skill at working the feathery edges of the law are legendary, and this isn’t the first time he’s been hired to trade cash for an abducted kid. But when the meet turns out to be an ambush, Burke’s partner is killed and he’s left for dead. Dumped on the steps of the ER, Burke hovers between life and death. While the police - and whoever wants him dead - are circling closer, biding their time.

Burke is back, but still lurking in the shadows, unable to return home. He is prowling the unfamiliar streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of a runaway teen. By all accounts, Rosebud Carlin is a happy, well-adjusted girl. She doesn’t fit the profile of the runaway kids Burke knows so well... and once was. But there’s something about her father....

It’s been years since Burke has been home, years since he’s seen his “family” and worked in the underbelly of New York City. Although his appearance has changed, his reputation grown dusty, and his wallet thin, his skills and his crew remain razor sharp. So when he is contacted by a mob boss to investigate the murder of his illegitimate daughter, Vonni, Burke takes the job and begins searching for an unspeakably vicious killer.

For years Burke has harbored an outlaw's hard love for Wolfe, the beautiful, driven former sex-crimes prosecutor who was fired for refusing to "go along to get along." So when Wolfe is arrested for the attempted murder of John Anson Wychek, a vicious rapist she once prosecuted, Burke deals himself in. That means putting together a distrustful alliance between his underground "family of choice," Wolfe's private network, and a rogue NYPD detective who has his own stake in the outcome. Burke knows that Wolfe’s alleged "victim," although convicted only once, is actually a serial rapist.

They meet in a no-name diner. A shadowy man hands Burke a CD dossier of someone he wants found. Minutes later, as Burke watches from an alley, his client is gunned down by a professional hunter-killer team. Burke slips away, unsure if he's been spotted.

When the former shot-caller of the country's most feared white supremacist prison gang contacts Burke, he comes with references...and the promise of a huge score. Terminally ill, the ex-con needs major cash to gamble on the long-shot possibility of a cure that's available only in Switzerland.

With the Prof clinging to life in an underground hospital facility, a man named Pryce shows up to make Burke an offer: professional care for the Prof and a clean slate for everyone in his family in return for Burke's services. Even though Pryce is a merciless man, never to be completely trusted, Burke knows he has only one choice, so he takes the job.