NOVELS

Two Trains Running
(Pantheon 2005, abridged version performed by David Joe Wirth)
Electrifying, compelling, and, ultimately, terrifying, Two Trains Running is a galvanizing evocation of that moment in our history when the violent forces that would determine America's future were just beginning to roil below the surface.

In a stunning departure from his usual territory, Andrew Vachss gives us a masterful novel that is also an epic story of postwar America. Not since Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest has there been as searing a portrait of corruption in a small town. This is Vachss's most ambitious, innovative, and explosive work yet.

Mask Market
(Brilliance Audio, 2006, performed by David Joe Wirth)
"Wirth's vocal interpretation of Burke, Vachss's famously driven defender of oppressed children and women, is an insightful mixture—tough, unruffled, pensive, dangerous and, considering the character's past hard-boiled appearances, surprisingly tender at times. The novel marks a sort of rebirth for the self-appointed sleuth, who is wearing a new face, thanks to an assassin's bullet and a skilled surgeon, and an outlook that is at least a shade less grim than in the past. This time, he's hunting for a woman he saved from a life of prostitution 20 years ago. She knows why his latest client was murdered and by whom. But she doesn't want to be found. Burke's detecting process is relatively straightforward, depending, as usual, on his "family" of colorful streetwise characters, each of whom is given his or her due via Wirth's dexterous delivery. Vachss also allows his protagonist a little more time than usual for self-reflection, as well as a prolonged romantic relationship that could, for once, end happily, and again Wirth rises to the challenge, softening Burke's hard edges during those sequences without turning him into a sentimental sap." —Publisher's Weekly

Terminal
(Brilliance Audio, 2007, performed by David Joe Wirth)
"[Andrew] Vachss portrays the criminal underworld with a grimy, exacting realism matched only by 'convict writers' like Edward Bunker, and the writing is more incisive and less pulpy than earlier efforts. Although the action seems relatively restrained, Burke's verbal fury ensures a propulsive, cleanly limned thriller that illuminates both the darkest excesses of criminality and, in counterpoint, the slack-jawed solipsism of the law abiding. Vachss's literary chops continue to mature, even as his lawyerly rage remains undimmed."—Time Out Chicago

SHORT STORIES

Proving It
(The Publishing Mills, 2001)
In this audiobook, Burt Reynolds brings to life 27 of Vachss' trademark life-at-ground-zero stories. In "Dope Fiend," a woman suffering from both terminal cancer and a drug-withholding doctor finds the hard answer to each. "Dead Game" illustrates the horrible consequences of misplaced loyalty. And an ex-con finds that, sometimes in life, payback is a beautiful thing, in the story "Proving It." After you hear these 27 stories—and the bonus track of David Joe Wirth reprising his stage performance of "Placebo"—you'll understand why The Washington Post declared Vachss "Lord of the Asphalt Jungle."