Andrew Vachss: Blossom (USA 1996)

From the Publisher:
In the figure of Burke, Andrew Vachss has given contemporary crime fiction one of its most mesmerizing characters. An abused child raised in orphanages, foster homes, and prisons, Burke is a career criminal and outlaw who steals and scams for a living.

In Blossom, an old cellmate has summoned Burke to a fading Indiana mill town, where a young boy is charged with a crime he didn't commit and a twisted serial sniper has turned a local lovers' lane into a killing field. And it's here that Burke meets Blossom, the brilliant, beautiful young woman who has her own reasons for finding the murderer -- and her own idea of vengeance. Dense with atmosphere, savagely convincing, this is Vachss at his uncompromising best.

Andrew Vachss: Blossom. A Burke Novel. Vintage Crime / Black Lizard, ISBN: 0679772618 (October, 1996), $13.00.

Andrew Vachss: Blossom (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
"COMPELLING... POWERFUL... Vachss is America's dark scribe of the 1990s.... His protagonist Burke is our new dark knight, a cold-eyed crusader." James Grady, Author of Six Days of the Condor

BLOSSOM
Two things bring Burke from New York to Indiana: a frantic call from an old cell mate named Virgil and a serial sniper whose twisted passion is to pick off couples on lovers' lane. Virgils nephew is the innocent prime suspect, and Burke vows to find the real killer the right way -- or the Burke way. And then comes Blossom. Slim, gorgeous, brilliant. She's got a heated interest in the murders...and in Burke.

"Burke fills a void in a cluttered, too often unchallenging genre. With his soiled white hat, this Lone Ranger of the '90s asks difficult questions of readers, while also shining light into the darkest recesses of their souls." Chicago Tribune

Andrew Vachss: Blossom. A snipers bloody work lures Burke to a small town in the heartland -- and into the mind of a killer... A Novel. Ivy Books, ISBN: 0804107513 (July, 1991), 307 p., $5.95.

Andrew Vachss: Blossom (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
'New York was always hard, but now it was ugly - a good time to go...'
The desperate plea for help wormed its way to the heart of the city. The kind of plea an old cellmate couldn't ignore. Virgil, from the wilds of Indiana. Hiding his teenage nephew from the cops before they finger him for going crazy with a gun in lover's lane.

It didn't take a country lover to smell a rat. Beneath the steel-mill smog and the native suspicion there was a real killer running loose. And Burke is on his own, working in the dark, in need of a match...

Which duly arrives in the slim and watchful form of Blossom. Connected to a killer by the blood on the street -- and shouting for justice at the top of her voice. Burke's kind of justice: no matter what it takes...

From today's master of hard-boiled fiction, BLOSSOM is the new novel starring Andrew Vachss' dazzling antihero-Burke, the underworld private eye.

Andrew Vachss: Blossom. Pan, ISBN: 0330318543 (March, 1991), 260 p., £14.99.

Andrew Vachss: Blossom (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
His four previous novels - Flood, Strega, Blue Belle, and Hard Candy - have established Andrew Vachss as today's unchallenged master of hard-boiled crime fiction. His brilliant anti-hero Burke - the brooding, merciless adversary of criminals who fatten on the lives of children -- has been hailed as "lord of the asphalt jungle" (Washington Post). Now, in his strongest novel yet, Vachss unleashes Burke into new territory... and Indiana may never be the same.

"New York was always hard," Burke tells us, "but now it was ugly... A good time to go." And what better lure was going to drag an ex-plea for help from his old cellmate, Virgil. In the Indiana mill town where Virgil lives, the local lovers' lane has become a sniper's shooting gallery. The locals are flimsy, but the cops need something to show, and they've fingered Virgil's teenage nephew as the prime suspect. Virgil -- street-naive but "schooled" well by Burke -- has taken the boy into hiding. Now he's counting on Burke to do what the cops can't or won't do: find the real killer.

Making his way to Indiana, Burke feels like "a city snake shedding its skin, coming into a new season." But he needs more than just disguise, he a new name to insinuate himself into this world where the faded midwestern sun barely breaks through the steel-mill smog or the intricacies of the people who live under its shroud. In New York, Burke knows the streets, the systems, the scams. But in Merrillville, "I was working in the dark. I needed a match."

Which comes in the slim, watchful, deceptively prim form of Blossom: a young woman who's connected by spilled blood to the murderers, to the evil of Burke's chase, and who's determined to help him bring the criminal to justice -- Burke's kind of justice -- no matter what it takes....

Andrew Vachss: Blossom. A Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 0394585232 (June, 1990), 255 p., $17.95.