Safe House

In Burke Andrew Vachss gave readers (and listeners) of crime fiction a hero they could believe in an avenger whose sense of justice was forged behind bars and tempered on New Yorks 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 whove marked them as their personal victims. Burkes client is Crystal Beth a beautiful outlaw with a tattoo on her face and a mission burned into her heart. Shes trying to shield one of her charges from a vengeful ex with fetishes for Nazism and torture. But the stalker has a protector someone so informed so ruthless and so connected that he need only make a few phone calls to shut down Crystal Beths operation for good - and Burke along with it. Sinuous in its complexities brutal in its momentum Safe House is Burke at the edge of his nerve and cunning. And its Vachss at the peak of his form.