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. The deeper he presses, the more gaping holes he finds in the prosecution’s case, but shadowy law enforcement agencies seem determined to protect Wychek at all costs, no matter who it sacrifices. Burke ups the ante by re-opening all the old "cold case” rape investigations, calls in a lot of markers from both sides of the law, and finally shows all the players why "down here" is no place for tourists....

In his most original and compelling book yet, Andrew Vachss presents an electrifying tale of corruption in a devastated mill town.  It is 1959--a moment in history when the clandestine, powerful forces that will shape America to the present day are about to collide.

Walker Dett is a hired gun, known for using the most extreme measures to accomplish his missions. Royal Beaumont is the "hillbilly boss" who turned Locke City from a dying town into a thriving vice capital. But organized crime outsiders are moving in on Beaumont's turf, so he reaches out for Dett in a high-risk move to maintain his power at all costs. Add a rival Irish political machine, a deeply entrenched neo-Nazi "party", the nascent black power movement, turf-disputing juvenile gangs, a muck-raking journalist who doubles as a blackmailer, the FBI--a covert observer and occasional participant which may itself be under surveillance-- and Locke City is about as stable as a nitroglycerin truck stalled on the railroad tracks....

"Vachss is a contemporary master."--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Vachss' writing is like a dark roller coaster ride of fear, love and hate." --The Times- Picayune

A hit man defies the confines of a life sentence to avenge his sister's batterer. An immaculately dressed man hires a street gang to extract his daughter from a Central American prison, for reasons as mysterious as they are deadly. A two-bit graffiti artist with a taste for Nazi-ganda finds himself face-to-face with three punks out to make a mark of their own--literally--with a tattoo needle.

From neo-noir master Andrew Vachss comes Everybody Pays, 38 white-knuckle rides into a netherworld of pederasts and prostitutes, stick-up kids and fall guys--where private codes of crime and punishment pulsate beneath a surface system of law and order, and our moral compass spins frighteningly out of control. Here is the street-grit prose that has earned Vachss comparisons to Chandler, Cain, and Hammett--and the ingenious plot twists that transform the double-cross into an expression of retribution, the dark deed into a thing of beauty. Electrifying and enigmatic, Everybody Pays is a sojourn into the nature of evil itself--a trip made all the more frightening by its proximity to our front doorstep.

"Vachss [is] in the first rank of contemporary American crime writers."--The Kansas City Star

"Andrew Vachss has become a cult favorite, and for good reason." --Cosmopolitan...

From the author of the acclaimed Burke series: a searing new novel that follows a band of homeless outcasts on a journey to recover what each has lost.

Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as a master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless "clanger" who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building even vermin avoid.

Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster's library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster's precious collection.

Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building's destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man's questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer....

After years of carefully working the edges, a blood-commitment forces Burke's return to his former career: "violence-for-money."

Claw, once the shot-caller of a white supremacist prison gang is free . . . and terminally ill--he desperately needs a pile of cash to bet on a long-shot cure. He tells Burke about a punk who once purchased protection from him, a man who claims to know the truth behind a "cold case, " the unsolved rape-murder of a thirteen-year-old girl. The killers are all weathly men today, ideal blackmail marks. But wealth is power, and the informant needs Claw's protection again. Burke decides to roll the dice. A win would give Burke the two things he lives for: Money and Revenge. A loss would turn "terminal" from a diagnosis into a certainly, and not just for Claw....

Eddie starts stealing cars long before he's old enough to get a license, driven by a force so compelling that he never questions, just obeys. After a series of false starts, interrupted by stays in juvenile institutions and a state prison term, Eddie's skills and loyalty attract the attention of J.C., a near-legendary hijacker. When he gets out, Eddie becomes the driver for J.C.'s ultra-professional crew. J.C., the master planner, is finally ready to pull off that one huge job every con dreams of ... the Retirement Score. But some roads have twists even a professional getaway man couldn't foresee ...

Andrew Vachss, a writer widely acclaimed for breathing new life and death into the crime genre, here presents a classic noir tale, relentlessly displaying and dissecting not guilt, but innocence....

Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless “clanger” who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building that even vermin avoid.

Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster’s library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster’s precious collection.

Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building’s destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man’s questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer....

Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless “clanger” who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building that even vermin avoid.

Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster’s library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster’s precious collection.

Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building’s destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man’s questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer....

Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless “clanger” who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building that even vermin avoid.

Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster’s library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster’s precious collection.

Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building’s destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man’s questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer....

The only person Burke has ever called “father,” a legendary crime planner known throughout the underground as the Prof, is in a coma, barely clinging to life in the off-the-books hospital where the crew stashed him after their last job went off the rails. So when Pryce, a shadow-man with deep (and very dark) government connections, offers a package – Presidential-grade medical services for the Prof and a wiped-clean slate for everyone who participates – Burke signs the contract without reading it.

The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch: no errors, no forensics...and no ransom note. Burke’s job: get the kid back. Whatever it costs, whatever it takes. Pryce came to Burke because the profile concluded this was the work of a pedophile ring. But after Burke turns over every rock and comes up empty in his hunt for maggots, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day “Baby Boy Burke” was written on his birth certificate to conduct the one interrogation that could possibly save this child and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of his life story....

Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless “clanger” who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building that even vermin avoid.

Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster’s library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster’s precious collection.

Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building’s destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man’s questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer....

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.

The one card he has to play is a small-time degenerate who paid for protection when they were in prison together. That professional bottom-feeder claims he personally buried the body of a thirteen-year-old girl who had been raped, tortured, and finally killed by three rich men more than thirty years ago - and that he’s holding irrefutable proof. But such a complicated extortion scheme needs the hand of a specialist crew, so Burke is offered a piece of the action.

He and his outlaw family put together a lethal plan. If they can pull it off, Burke gets the two things he lives for: money and revenge. If they can’t, “terminal” could prove to be more than just one man’s diagnosis....

The only person Burke has ever called “father,” a legendary crime planner known throughout the underground as the Prof, is in a coma, barely clinging to life in the off-the-books hospital where the crew stashed him after their last job went off the rails. So when Pryce, a shadow-man with deep (and very dark) government connections, offers a package – Presidential-grade medical services for the Prof and a wiped-clean slate for everyone who participates – Burke signs the contract without reading it.

The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch: no errors, no forensics...and no ransom note. Burke’s job: get the kid back. Whatever it costs, whatever it takes. Pryce came to Burke because the profile concluded this was the work of a pedophile ring. But after Burke turns over every rock and comes up empty in his hunt for maggots, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day “Baby Boy Burke” was written on his birth certificate to conduct the one interrogation that could possibly save this child and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of his life story....

Burke’s newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her — so she can kill him with her bare hands.

In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss’s renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child’s murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements. Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest — and Vachss at the peak of his form.

“An extraordinary thriller. . . . Vachss never flinches from the horror.” — Washington Post Book World

“Burke would eat Spade and Marlowe for breakfast, not even spitting out the bones. [He] is one tough, mean, pray-God-you-don’t-meet-him hombre.” — Boston Herald...

Burke’s newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her — so she can kill him with her bare hands.

In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss’s renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child’s murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements. Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest — and Vachss at the peak of his form.

“An extraordinary thriller. . . . Vachss never flinches from the horror.” — Washington Post Book World

“Burke would eat Spade and Marlowe for breakfast, not even spitting out the bones. [He] is one tough, mean, pray-God-you-don’t-meet-him hombre.” — Boston Herald...

Burke’s newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her — so she can kill him with her bare hands.

In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss’s renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child’s murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements. Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest — and Vachss at the peak of his form.

“An extraordinary thriller. . . . Vachss never flinches from the horror.” — Washington Post Book World

“Burke would eat Spade and Marlowe for breakfast, not even spitting out the bones. [He] is one tough, mean, pray-God-you-don’t-meet-him hombre.” — Boston Herald...

The only person Burke has ever called “father,” a legendary crime planner known throughout the underground as the Prof, is in a coma, barely clinging to life in the off-the-books hospital where the crew stashed him after their last job went off the rails. So when Pryce, a shadow-man with deep (and very dark) government connections, offers a package – Presidential-grade medical services for the Prof and a wiped-clean slate for everyone who participates – Burke signs the contract without reading it.

The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch: no errors, no forensics...and no ransom note. Burke’s job: get the kid back. Whatever it costs, whatever it takes. Pryce came to Burke because the profile concluded this was the work of a pedophile ring. But after Burke turns over every rock and comes up empty in his hunt for maggots, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day “Baby Boy Burke” was written on his birth certificate to conduct the one interrogation that could possibly save this child and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of his life story....

In this blistering conclusion to the nationally bestselling series, Burke is forced into a journey that will change the lives of the urban survivalist and his outlaw family forever.

The only person Burke has ever called father, known throughout the underground as “The Prof,” is in a coma, barely clinging to life in an off the-books hospital. So when Pryce, a slippery man with government connections, offers the best medical services for the Prof and a clean slate for all concerned, Burke takes the contract without reading it. The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch; no mistakes, no clues, and no ransom note. Burke’s job: get the kid back, whatever it takes. To do so, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day “Baby Boy Burke” was written on his birth certificate, and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of this story....

In this blistering conclusion to the nationally bestselling series, Burke is forced into a journey that will change the lives of the urban survivalist and his outlaw family forever.

The only person Burke has ever called father, known throughout the underground as “The Prof,” is in a coma, barely clinging to life in an off the-books hospital. So when Pryce, a slippery man with government connections, offers the best medical services for the Prof and a clean slate for all concerned, Burke takes the contract without reading it. The two-year-old son of a Saudi prince has been kidnapped. A highly professional snatch; no mistakes, no clues, and no ransom note. Burke’s job: get the kid back, whatever it takes. To do so, the ultimate man-for-hire must return to the day “Baby Boy Burke” was written on his birth certificate, and write, in the blood of his enemies, the final act of this story....