They meet in a no-name diner. A shadowy man hands Burke a CD dossier of someone he wants found. Minutes later, as Burke watches from an alley, his client is gunned down by a professional hunter-killer team. Burke slips away, unsure if he's been spotted. Later, when he examines the dossier, he discovers that the missing woman is Beryl Preston, a girl he'd rescued from a brutal pimp twenty years earlier - when she was only thirteen - and returned to her father.

Now he has to find her again - not only because she might be in danger, but also because he has to prove to himself that his rescue mission hadn't been financed by a predator who wanted his "property" returned. His search will force him to confront a new kind of human ugliness and, finally, to practice the survivalist triage that has marked - and cursed - his life since childhood. In Mask Market, Burke the outlaw investigator finds himself searching for the truth: not only about a girl named Beryl, but also about himself.

This is classic Burke: dark, dangerous, and galvanizing, from the opening scene to the explosive climax.

Renegade Private Investigator Burke finally gets a customer; then, shortly after he leaves, the man is killed. Despite no possibility of financial gain, Burke has a personal interest in finding the man's missing wife and solving his murder. Matching wits against another of New York City's seedier inhabitants, Burke must use all his resources to figure out who's behind the murder. David Joe Wirth's voice is not quite edgy enough for the story's tone and setting, but, at the same time, if his voice were any more tense, it would feel artificial. Instead, he invokes a quiet, solemn tone that can, at times, make Burke feel more akin to Buddha than to Dirty Harry. L.E. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

 

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.