Synopses & Reviews
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.
In Choice of Evil, Burke is forced to confront his most harrowing challenge: the mind of an obsessive serial killer. And soon the emotionally void method behind the killer's madness becomes terrifyingly familiar, reminding Burke of his childhood partner, Wesley, the ice-man assassin who never missed, even when the target was himself. Has Wesley come back from the dead? The whisper-stream says so. And the truth may just challenge Burke's very sense of reality. Expertly plotted, addictively enthralling, Choice of Evil is Andrew Vachss' most haunting tale to date.
Review
"Like its predecessors, Choice of Evil is the perfect mix: a lesson to heighten public awareness cleverly disguised in a riveting tale that offers high entertainment and a satisfying sense of justice." Beth Amos, Salon.com
Review
"[A] dizzying shapeshifter of a tale that speeds suspense, vengeance, retribution, magic, bizarre sex play, characters old and new and icicle-pointed prose past the reader in a near blur." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A-plus creepy." The Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Vachss' fiction is so dark, the content so uncompromising, it makes most supernatural horror fiction look like soft pink and blue bunny rabbit stories by comparison." Edward Bryant, Locus
Review
"We follow Burke on a can't-put-it-down race to the fireworks of a spectacular conclusion....Burke lovers [will] feel warm and fuzzy all over. Great stuff." Book Magazine
Review
"Vachss creates a gun-metal gray, paranoid milieu where few can be trusted...and where children and women are always yes, always at risk. It's a harrowing world, but one with magnetic appeal for readers with a dark side." Wes Lukowsky, Booklist
Review
"If the prospect of an extended rhetorical duel between tougher-than-thou Burke and his worked-my-way-up-from-kidnaping-children quarry doesn't get your juices flowing, you may want to sit this round out." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] scorching, mutilayered new crime novel." Dave Ford, The Advocate
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Andrew Vachss, an attorney in private practice specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse, is the country's best recognized and most widely sought after spokesperson on crimes against children. He is also a bestselling novelist and short story writer, whose works include
Flood (1985), the novel which first introduced Vachss's series character Burke,
Strega (1987),
Choice of Evil (1999), and
Dead and Gone (2000). His short stories have appeared in
Esquire,
Playboy, and
The Observer, and he is a contributor to
ABA Journal,
Journal of Psychohistory,
New England Law Review,
The New York Times, and
Parade.
Vachss has worked as a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a caseworker in New York, and a professional organizer. He was the director of an urban migrants re-entry center in Chicago and another for ex-cons in Boston. After managing a maximum-security prison for violent juvenile offenders, he published his first book, a textbook, about the experience. He was also deeply involved in the relief effort in Biafra, now Nigeria.