Andrew Vachss: Pain Management (2002) From the Publisher: Burke knows the street script, but the actors are all strangers. Cut off from his family and his network of criminal contacts, Burke is forced into a dangerous alliance with a renegade group dedicated to providing relief to those in intractable pain by any means necessary. A bargain is struck, and the fuse is lit. Heart-stopping and hard-hitting, Pain Management is the latest bout in Andrew Vachss's thrilling reign as undisputed champ of brass knuckles noir. Andrew Vachss: Pain Management. A Burke Novel. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, ISBN: 0375726470 (October, 2002), 307 p., $13.00.
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Andrew Vachss: Pain Management (2001) From the Publisher: Burke has gone "missing-and-presumed" from his native New York City, following a failed assassination attempt. The shadowy man-for-hire is scratching out an existence in the Pacific Northwest, waiting to see if it is safe to return. Without his underground network of contacts and connections, cut off from his own people, Burke is forced to abandon his trademark complex scams. Instead, he returns to what he refers to as "violence for money." When Gem, the professional border-crosser who calls herself his wife, brings him a job tracking down a runaway teenager, Burke finds himself in a long, dark tunnel of lies -- lined with more games than players. Burke takes to the unfamiliar streets, quickly and brutally establishing a presence. The whisper-stream carries him to a fanatical group of criminal Samaritans dedicated to supplying adequate drugs for those suffering from chronic pain. Forced into a potentially deadly alliance, Burke walks the wire between betrayals, risking it all for a girl he has never met. Because the State-raised outlaw knows better than most that there are many kinds of pain. And many ways to "manage" it. Andrew Vachss: Pain Management. A Burke Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 0375413227 (September, 2001), 333 p., $24.00.
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