With the possible exception of James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss is the mystery writer with the darkest heart and the most troubled soul. Like his 10 other books about the enigmatic outlaw private eye called Burke, Choice of Evil deals with unpleasant subjects--ritual murder, pedophilia, sexual deviance--the full force of which are never dampened by attempts at tact or taste. Vachss is not an author to look away from the nasty, or try to soften any of life's lowest blows.

That said, his latest does start off on a light note when Burke's giant mastiff, Pansy, is grabbed in a police raid. Burke and his motley crew of helpers--people with names like Mole, Crystal Beth, and Max the Silent--stage a raid on the animal shelter, and in a zany scene worthy of Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake, set free a herd of caged canines. All too soon, however, darkness descends as Crystal Beth--Burke's main squeeze and an activist for abused women--is killed at an outdoor rally, apparently by someone who hates homosexuals. Following this atrocity, a vigilante calling himself Homo Erectus declares war on gay bashers, and also on pedophiles who seek to link their cause to gay rights. Burke is hired to find this vigilante and keep him safe before the cops nab him.

Mentioning pedophilia to Burke is like waving a red flag at a bull: he can (and does) go on for many pages about this particular evil as he and a friendly lesbian dominatrix link Homo Erectus to a supposedly long-dead killer from Burke's own past.

To absorb the full force of the Burke canon, read other books in the series: Safe House, Blossom, Blue Belle, and False Allegations. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
Urban nightmares have been Vachss's stock-in-writing-trade since his debut 14 years ago with the extraordinary Flood. His 11th Burke novel is more nightmare than most, 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. After the customary preludeABurke loses his apartment and must move with his dog to BrooklynAthe action proper begins. The outlaw PI is hired by a group of gay activists to find a vigilante, the self-proclaimed Homo Erectus (HE), who is wiping out gay-bashers around the city; the activists plan to spirit him to safety. Too soon, the case complicates immenselyAfor Burke but also for readers. Burke's lover was killed a while back in a drive-by shooting of gay protesters. Was HE involved? Why is HE, whom Burke contacts through the Net, so obsessed with Wesley, the stone killer apparently blown up some time ago? Has Wesley returned from the dead? What does the lesbian dominatrix aiding Burke in his search for HE really want? Into this plot mesh, Vachss weaves cameos by nearly all the series regularsAMax the Silent, Mole the technogeek, Strega the witch, etc.Abut anyone new to the books will weep at trying to make sense of the relations between them. Vachss's excesses strut through the storyAthe elliptical narration, the ranting against pederasts, the psychosexual melodrama ("She licked the blood off... sucked until she came, spasming... "). The plot whips here, there and everywhere, including into extensive but only tangentially relevant flashbacks, via computer messages from HE, of the killer's kidnapping of a girl. Like a furiously spun hand-cranked generator, this angry novel spits out a few sparks, but not enough to distract readers from the real show: that of a talented writer sliding toward self-parody. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In Vachss's (Safe House, LJ 2/1/98) 11th "Burke" novel, Burke's girlfriend is killed and others are injured in a drive-by shooting at a gay rights rally. Soon known gay-bashers begin turning up dead, and a mysterious stranger calling himself "Homo Erectus" claims responsibility. Burke is hired to find the elusive avenger by a group who wants to help HE (as he comes to be known) disappear before the police get to him. Burke's world is a perpetually dark place where being on the wrong side of the law isn't necessarily a bad thing, where "family" is more about who you trust than who you're related to, and where danger is always just around the corner. This series isn't for everyone. Some readers may find it too dark or too hard, but those who like Vachss's other works should enjoy this one. Recommended for large mystery/thriller collections.ALeslie Madden, Georgia Inst. of Technology Lib. & Information Ctr., Atlanta Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
At a gay rally in New York City, Burke's friend Crystal Beth is killed in a drive-by shooting. Burke and his tribe of shadowy, semicriminal associates set out to track down the killer, but their investigation is soon impeded by a retaliatory series of murders perpetrated against known gay bashers. As Burke slithers through his world of warehouses, abandoned buildings, false IDs, stolen cell phones, police informants, and damaged souls, he learns that the source of all the killing may have a more complicated motive than hate or even revenge. Burke novels are an acquired taste but apparently one acquired by enough readers to support a series that has survived for a decade. Vachss creates a gun-metal gray, paranoid milieu where few can be trusted, where to be mainstream is to be compromised, 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


From Kirkus Reviews
Burke, the investigator/mercenary with a heart as cold as Mike Hammer's .45, is hired to protect a serial killer from the cops. First, though, Vachss sets the stage by having the NYPD, responding to an anonymous tip, descend on Burke's off-the-books apartment, just missing him but pulling in his partner, the Napoleon mastiff he calls Pansy. Rounding up the usual suspectsthe Prof, Clarence, the Mole, deaf Max, and Crystal BethBurke liberates Pansy and a whole lot of other surprised dogs from an animal shelter. But the dancing turns to weeping when Crystal Beth, who's let Burke crash in her shelter for abused women, is gunned down during a rally in Central Park, apparently the victim of a drive-by gay-basher. It's a situation ripe for Burke's uniquely individualistic approach to morality, but this time he doesn't need to do anything, because an avenging vigilante has targeted gay-bashers. Identifying himself in his manifestos as ``Homo Erectus,'' this gay-rights Unabomber keeps stepping up his campaign. After his execution of a prominent pedophilia activist ignites a storm of protest, he goes into high gear with a campaign to separate homosexuals from the pedophiles seeking alliances with them to cover their exploitation of the young (presumably Vachss's real axe to grind this time out), punctuating his jeremiads by bombing a pedophile junket to the Far East. Offered $50,000 by an interested client to bring in the killer so that he can be whisked out of the jurisdiction, Burke (Safe House, 1998, etc.) manages, with the help of a cybertracker, a self-styled lesbian dominant, and a blast from his own past, to trace the killer's m.o. to a professional assassin named Wesley. Wesley's been dead for years, thoughor has he? 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. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"A gripping tale of evil, cruelty, retribution and love."  -The Plain Dealer

"Choice of Evil is Vachss' darkest Burke yet, exploring man's propensity for savagery, ice-cold cunning and wearing thin the limits of sanity."  -The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi)


Review
"A gripping tale of evil, cruelty, retribution and love."  -The Plain Dealer

"Choice of Evil is Vachss' darkest Burke yet, exploring man's propensity for savagery, ice-cold cunning and wearing thin the limits of sanity."  -The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi)


Book Description
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 mystery: 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, addictive, enthralling, Choice of Evil is Andrew Vachss' most haunting tale to date.


Download Description
The murder of his bisexual girlfriend at a gay-rights rally leaves Burke with only one choice: revenge. But he has competition: someone going by the name Homo Erectus has begun a killing campaign against any and all gay-bashers -- the same breed that killed Burke's lover. The police want Homo Erectus caught and convicted, and they think he could be Burke. The gay-rights community wants Homo Erectus to be shielded from the law, and Burke is their choice for the job. Burke finds himself simultaneously an avenger, a suspect, a conspirator. But as Burke pursues Homo Erectus -- whose crimes seem morally defensible to some -- the murderer begins to reveal an even darker side to himself: he is striving to be a consummate killer, engaging in murder not for the sake of the kill but merely for the art. And it's an art he will perfect by delving into the world of the supernatural, and ultimately toying with the spirit of a man Burke had long ago watched go to his grave. In "Choice of Evil", Andrew Vachss gives us Burke at his edgiest, and moving closest to the edge: coming face to face with the most horrific workings of the human heart and mind.


From the Publisher
The biggest Burke book yet! A rally in Central Park, a protest against gay bashing. A murderous drive-by. Five people down, two dead. First the gay bashers celebrate ... then they start dropping. Claiming responsibility is the mysterious "Homo Erectus," whose identity is as hidden as his mission is clear. To most citizens, Homo Erectus is a serial killer with a political agenda. But to some, he's a hero and, like the police, they desperately want to find him. Unlike the police, they want to help him disappear before the dragnet tightens. They hire Burke for the job. Which is when things really get ugly. Andrew Vachss is an attorney working exclusively with children, and the author of more than a dozen novels. Choice of Evil, his latest, is his biggest yet, clocking in at more than 110,000 words. It's supernatural suspense-a first for Vachss ... a real departure (from everything but the one theme he's never strayed from). Choice of Evil will be available beginning the last week of April 1999 from Knopf.


From the Inside Flap
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 mystery: 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, addictive, enthralling, Choice of Evil is Andrew Vachss' most haunting tale to date.


From the Back Cover
"A gripping tale of evil, cruelty, retribution and love." -The Plain Dealer

"Choice of Evil is Vachss' darkest Burke yet, exploring man's propensity for savagery, ice-cold cunning and wearing thin the limits of sanity." -The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi)


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’ 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.

For ten years, Vachss’ law practice combined criminal defense with child protection, until, with the success of his novels, it segued exclusively into the latter, which is his passion. Vachss calls the child protective movement “a war,” and considers his writing as powerful a weapon as his litigation.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Chapter One

It was almost three in the morning when she'd called, so I was outside her apartment house in fifteen minutes. I didn't like the doorman eyeballing me more than once, but I didn't see a way around it either. If he thought it was unusual for someone to be calling at that hour, he didn't show it . . . just rang up and got the okay for me to enter the elevator.

        She must have been right at the peephole--the door opened even as I raised my knuckles to rap. The rose lighting was back on. Otherwise, the place was shrouded. "Go sit down," she told me, standing aside.

        I gave up trying to solve the mystery of her three chairs and just took the middle one, letting her play any way she wanted.

        She looked ghostly, floating across the room toward me. Barefoot, in a gauzy white robe that wrapped her body--a frame, not a cover. She took the nearest open chair, reached over, and pulled mine around so we were facing each other.

        "I believe you," she said.

        "Which means . . . ?"

        "I believe you wouldn't . . . do what you said. I believe you . . . Oh, never mind. Look, here it is, okay? She . . . asked around. Like you said. I don't know about this 'theory' of yours, but you're right about one thing--they have the men who did that drive-by."

        "Have them?"

        "Found them, I should have said. They're dead. And one of the people killed in the crowd--you were right about that too. The police think it was murder. I mean, deliberate murder. The rest was only for . . . what do you call it? Camouflage? I don't know. But the cops say it was business. Professional business. They think they know who gave the order. That's what you want, right?"

        "That's what I want."

        "Well, I have it," she said.

        "But you want to play with it first? Or you want me to place a fucking bid? What?"

        "Why are you so . . . hostile?" she asked softly. "I've been nice to you. It was fun . . . flirting, right? I know you liked it."

        "We've already been there," I told her.

        "You really hate them, don't you?" she said, leaning so close I could feel her breath.

        "Who?"

        "Child molesters."

        "Who doesn't?" I said, sloughing it off, staying clear of whatever was lightning-bolting around the rose-lit room.

        "You should spend more time where I do," she said, an ugly undertone to her soft voice. "And you said to ask. You said it was okay. You told me to do it."

        "What are you talking about?"

        "My . . . friend. The cops. All that. It was easy, she said. They all . . . a lot of them anyway . . . they know you. Or about you, at least. I even know about those murders--the ones in the South Bronx."

        "Jesus Christ, that's the kind of sorry two-bit rumor your pal came up with? That story's a fucking fossil."

        "I know what you think," she said, sliding the gauzy robe off her shoulders. "You think I'm trying to get you to . . . admit something, right?"

        "That's why you keep taking your clothes off? So I'll see you're not wearing a wire?" I laughed at her.

        I could see her face flush. Or maybe it was just the reflected light.

        "I'm just more . . . comfortable this way," she told me. "I don't like clothes. I don't like people to wear clothes. It's another thing to hide behind."

        "Yeah, sure. You spend half your life in a gym, you've got a beef with clothes? You're more confident without your clothes, that's all. Because you're an overmatch against most everyone else that way."

        "I'll bet I'd be with you."

        "No contest," I acknowledged.

        "You don't want to play at all, do you?"

        "No."

        "Why not?"

        "I'm not a player."

        "What does that mean? You don't have sex unless you're in love?"

        "No. It means I smoke cigarettes but I don't light them with sticks of dynamite."

        "You don't trust me?"

        "I'd have to upgrade a cubic ton to distrust you," I told her, keeping my voice level. "You got me over here because you said you had what I wanted. Instead of giving it to me, you start asking me about some murders I'm supposed to have committed. I tell you I don't want to fuck you," I said, dropping my voice, letting a harder tone bleed through, "you tell me I'm a liar. I told you before: Behavior is the truth. What's the game? I say: 'Sure, you've got a body that would get a rise in a morgue,' and you say, 'Well, you're not getting any of it'? Would that make you happy? Is that your game? Okay, I'll pay that much, if that's what it takes. You're a gorgeous woman."

        "But . . . ?"

        "But you can't get juice from marble," I told her.

        "What does that mean?"

        "How many different ways you want me to say it? You've got a stake in this. Not the same one Lincoln and those other guys have. Yeah, I know, you told me: You 'love' this guy. And you just want to protect him, right? Sure, fine. I'll buy it, that's what you want. And I played right along, didn't I? You think I'd turn him over to the cops for a pass on one of my own cases, then don't help. But you already did that, right? Checked me out. Found out some stuff. Enough to convince you that, whatever else I am, I'm not a rat. So here I am. And what do I get? Another strip show. More of your stupid teasing. And some questions about . . . bullshit crap that couldn't be your business."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A rally in Central Park, a protest against gay-bashing. A murderous drive-by. Five people down, two dead. One of them Crystal Beth, girlfriend of Burke, the most haunted and darkly talented man-for-hire in the city. First the gay-bashers celebrate... then they start dropping. Claiming responsibility is the mysterious "Homo Erectus," whose identity is as unknown as his mission is clear. Burke is unsurprised when the cops pull him in for questioning — "I was born a suspect." But he is now also homeless and homicidal, a gun without a target, unable to find the shooters who killed his last chance at love, and drifting near the brink of the ultimate despair he calls the Zero. Most citizens see Homo Erectus as a serial killer with a political agenda. But to some, he's become a hero. Like the police, they desperately want to find him. But unlike the police, they want to help him disappear before the dragnet tightens. They hire Burke for the job. Which is when things really get ugly. For as Burke tracks the killer, he stumbles across the unmistakable footprints of the man who was the city's most feared assassin before his own death — an ice-cold murder machine whose very name still inspires terror in the city's underground. The whisper-stream is divided in its verdict: either Wesley never really died... or he's found a way to come back.

SYNOPSIS

A rally in Central Park, a protest against gay bashing. A murderous drive-by. Five people down, two dead. First the gay bashers celebrate ... then they start dropping. Claiming responsibility is the mysterious ￯﾿ﾽHomo Erectus,￯﾿ﾽ whose identity is as hidden as his mission is clear. To most citizens, Homo Erectus is a serial killer with a political agenda. But to some, he￯﾿ﾽs a hero and, like the police, they desperately want to find him. Unlike the police, they want to help him disappear before the dragnet tightens. They hire Burke for the job. Which is when things really get ugly.

FROM THE CRITICS

John Searles - OUT Magazine

Before you go out and buy what sounds like the gay thriller of the year, be warned: If you're looking for the satisfaction of vengeance, you won't find it here. Vachss' killer turns out to have a whole other agenda besides righting gay wrongs. Too bad for us. It might be fun to read about a sicko who's on our side for a change.

Beth Amos

Burke, the streetwise ex-con with a heart of gold and a unique code of honor, finds that life seems to be kicking him in the teeth. Somehow the cops have uncovered his latest hideaway and staged a raid while he was out. Not only has Burke lost his home, all his belongings, and his alternate IDs, the cops have hauled Pansy, Burke's aging but still intimidating Napoleon mastiff, off to the pound. After rounding up several members of his "family" — the Prof, Max, the Mole, and Crystal Beth — Burke pulls his own raid, descending on the dog pound and freeing not only Pansy but all the other canine captives as well.

A short while later, Burke is holing up in the home of his girlfriend, Crystal Beth, when she decides to attend a gay rally in Central Park. It turns out to be a fatal mistake: A drive-by shooting occurs, and Crystal Beth becomes one of two victims who die in the onslaught. Tortured with grief and fueled by a need for revenge, Burke takes a keen interest in a serial killer who starts racking up victims immediately after the drive-by, and who seems to be targeting anyone who has spoken or acted on a hatred for gays. The killer, who gives himself the moniker Homo Erectus in the manifestos he provides to the newspapers, quickly becomes a societal hero, and "H. E." is often spoken of reverently.

When a secret gay/lesbian group financed by an unknown benefactor hires Burke to find the killer, they claim that their only interest is in seeing the man escape from town and disappear unharmed. The killer's actions have had a resoundingly positive effect on the incidences of gay bashing, and the group recognizes the value of keeping him "out there" somewhere, even if he isn't actively seeking revenge. But Burke is wary of one member of the group, a very attractive woman named Nadine who attaches herself to him and his quest with a tenacity that's both spooky and puzzling. Yet she proves invaluable when she uses her own connections to provide Burke with some key evidence crucial to identifying Homo Erectus, so he keeps her involved, albeit at a safe arm's length.

After finding himself some new "unofficial" living quarters and ordering a new set of identification, Burke focuses all his attention on trying to smoke out Homo Erectus, whose killings have steadily escalated. H. E.'s protests take a turn when he starts campaigning against pedophiles who try to disguise themselves as gays. Then he concisely demonstrates his abhorrence of this group by killing dozens in one fell swoop when he blows up a plane carrying a group of pedophiles on a secret junket to the Far East.

Rumors are running rampant that the killer is the notorious and highly feared professional assassin Wesley, except that Wesley is supposed to be dead. Still, there are those who believe a mojo like Wesley's may come back in supernatural form to settle a karmic debt. Burke — who knew Wesley better than anyone — dismisses these speculations out of hand, but the killer's techniques do eerily resemble Wesley's, and there are indications that the killer has intimate knowledge of Wesley's life.

With the help of a cybergeek who attracts the killer's attention over the Internet, Burke finally establishes contact. What he learns then twists all his beliefs around, revealing a truth far more complex and disturbing than any he imagined. When Burke finally comes face-to-face with the killer, it provokes a startling and stunning showdown of the highest magnitude.

With a background that includes stints as a lawyer, a field investigator for the U.S. Public Health Service, and a social casework supervisor in New York City, Vachss is no stranger to the real-world horrors of child abuse and other crimes, and he makes no secret about using his writing as a social platform for his causes. He has created the perfect antihero in Burke, providing a vicarious outlet for the dark and vengeful thoughts that lurk in all of us. Vachss's stories are gritty, dark, and often painful but also compelling enough to get and hold one's attention. 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

Locus

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.

Book Magazine

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.

Library Journal