Another Life: 18 (Burke)

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.

Andrew Vachss is a lawyer who represents children and youths exclusively. His many novels and two collections of short stories have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Esquire, Playboy, and The New York Times, among other publications. A native New Yorker, he divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.