Synopses & Reviews
It's not an unusual job for Burke career criminal and ultimate urban man-for-hire to act as middleman in an exchange of cash for a kidnapped child. But this time the only things exchanged are bullets. Burke loses his beloved partner, and lies in a hospital bed close to or maybe even past death, hovering in a netherworld of nightmares and hallucinations. When he finally escapes from the hospital, his appearance has changed radically and so has he.
Burke's religion is revenge. Eager to begin worship, he meets with the man who set up the exchange. When that meeting ends in homicide, Burke goes deeper underground than ever before he vanishes off every radar screen and starts to hunt. Along the way, he enlists the aid of a pilot he hasn't seen since the war in Biafra and a Russian-speaking Cambodian woman named Gem. And he must locate a mystical childhood friend who finds patterns where others see chaos. With their help, Burke uncovers a frightening and evil foreign territory a safe harbor for predatory degenerates.
Stunning in its execution, shocking in its conclusion, Dead and Gone gives us a new Burke: trapped, out of his element and more dangerous than ever.
Review
"Vachss's voice, as always, is one of the most distinctive in crime fiction lean and tough, heavy on vernacular, notable for what's not said rather than for what is....Hardcore Burke fans may find the inner character work fascinating..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The left-for-dead-but-back-for-revenge plot is an old one, but Vachss manages to give it new life....[He] spreads his message effectively through the ever dangerous, relentless Burke. Crime fiction with a powerful moral." Wes Lukowsky, Booklist
Review
"Dead and Gone opens enough narrative veins and introduces enough colorful new characters to insure that Burke will live on as one of contemporary crime fiction's most durable creations." New York Post
Review
"Fans of previous novels in the Burke series will be shocked at some of the plot twists in this exciting addition." Library Journal
Review
"If I were to compare Andrew Vachss to any other writer, it would be Charles Dickens his larger-than-life characters, his deep commitment to the innocent victims of our society, his hopes for redemption. As Dickens' prose dragged us into the back alleys, sweatshops, and debtor's prisons of old London, Vachss takes us through the depravity of perversion as it is acted out upon the lost innocence of the unprotected children of America today." Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Blue Dress
Review
"[One] of the best Burke novels in years, gritty and violent as ever but also philosophical and even moving." The Capital Times
Review
"The books of Andrew Vachss are much more than great entertainment. They are a fierce crusade for all victims who can't fight back, especially the imperiled children to whom Vachss has devoted his considerable talent, and his life." Carl Hiaasen
Review
"Dead and Gone is a defining chapter and an enlightening moment of transition in the long, hard story of Burke. At the same time, it is a stark, compassionate and strangely different novel by one of the most original and ferocious voices in American fiction. I cannot recommend it too highly." Chet Williamson, author of Second Chance
Synopsis
From the modern master of noir, Andrew Vachss, comes this heart-topping and bestselling new thriller that completely reinvents the Burke series.
Urban Outlaw Burke barely survives an attack by a professional hit squad that kills his partner. With a new face, Burke goes into hiding. And on the hunt. Dead and Gone takes him from the streets of New York City through a cross-country underground, and deep into his own tortured past. The violent journey ends in a place that exists only in the dreams of the darkest degenerates on 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.
He lives in New York City and the Pacific Northwest.