When last encountered (2000's Dead and Gone), career criminal Burke was on the rebound from a nearly successful assassination attempt, lying low and licking his wounds in Portland, Oregon. Severed from his connections in NYC, Burke survives on jobs--"violence for money" mostly--brokered by his
Burke, the dark avenger of Vachss's ultra-gritty urban crime series, has been killing bad peopleAusually child molestersAfor most of his 40-odd years. Somebody was bound to catch up with him eventually, and that's exactly what happens in this 13th installment in the series. Professional killers
Each of Vachss's 10 previous novels has dealt with child abuse, but he's worked other themes as well, most notably the volatility of love and the hypocrisies of the middle class. Judging by his darkly disturbing Batman novel of last year (Batman: The Ultimate Evil), however, and by this shard of a
