Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
Burke is one of the most cold-blooded yet strangely honorable heroes in the history of crime fiction, an outlaw who makes his living by preying on the most vicious of New York City's bottom-feeders, those who thrive on the suffering of children.

In Andrew Vachss's tautly engrossing novel Burke is given a purse full of dirty money to find the infamous Ghost Van that is cutting a lethal swath among the teenage prostitutes in the 'hood'. He also gets help in the form of a stripper named Belle, whose moves on the runway are outclassed only by what she can do in a getaway car. But not even Burke is prepared for the evil that is behind the Ghost Van or for the sheer menace of its guardian, a cadaverous karate expert who enjoys killing so much that he has named himself after death.

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle. A Burke Novel. Vintage Books / Black Lizard, ISBN: 0679761683 (July, 1995), 339 p., $13.00.

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle (UK 1990)

From the Publisher:
'Tomorrow is for citizens. For outlaws it's always now...'
Belle is big, beautiful and blonde. Still running from the man who killed her sister and repainted her dreams in the colour of blood. The end of the road is a hostess bar-fronting for a pimp with death on his mind.

Outside a savage gang of predators is loose on the city streets, kidnapping and killing prostitutes in the death machine they call the Ghost Van. Outlaw private detective Burke needs the reward for finding the van. But not as badly as Belle needs somebody to love. In a bizarre and terrifying adventure in the serious underworld of New York City, staying together could be the only way left to stay alive...

'Move over Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, you've got company' COSMOPOLITAN

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle. Pan, ISBN: 0330308807 (March, 1990), 336 p., £3.99.

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
"A ROLLER-COASTER OF VIOLENCE... AN EMOTIONAL BANG THAT LEAVES THE HEART POUNDING!" -- Publishers Weekly
Burke works the darkest sides of the meanest city streets. Now those streets are even more shadowed by a Ghost Van snuffing teenage prostitutes. To stop it, pimps have given Burke a war chest stuffed with dirty money, and help in the fabulous form of a blonde stripper whose naked offer of heavenly sex masks a secret hell. Burke thinks he is shockproof about the evil men and women do. He is wrong...

"Violence laced with the bizarre...very steamy sex... the underworld and the pits of the human heart and soul... readers will be tearing the pages apart to see what happens next." - Library Journal

"Move over Hammett and Chandler, you've got company...tense and terrifying... an absolute original...Andrew Vachss has become a cult favorite, and for good reason." - Cosmopolitan

"INTRIGUING... READ IT!" - The Milwaukee Journal

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle. A Novel. New American Library / Signet, ISBN: 0451162900 (March, 1990), 336 p., $4.99.

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
BURKE IS AN ex-con whose time "inside" honed his survival skills to a razor-edge. He's an unlicensed private investigator who's an expert on the dangerous and the degenerate, a denizen of the part of New York City where neon is the only light, sexual perversion and violence are the only religions, and anything imaginable (or unimaginable) can be bought. He's the tightly wound engine that drives Blue Belle -- every bit as electrifying as Andrew Vachss' first two Burke novels, Flood and Strega, but more shocking still, as Burke uncovers a brand of depravity even he is not prepared for...

A savage gang of predators prowls the dark streets of the city in a special vehicle -- so silent and smooth it's called the "Ghost Van"-hunting teenage prostitutes, kidnapping and killing. There's a $50,000 reward for taking it off the street -- in any permanent way. The money comes from a collection plate passed among the city's pimps, but Burke has his own reasons for becoming their bounty hunter...

And more terrifying than the Ghost Van is a martial arts expert called Mortay, a "deathmatch" specialist who now wants a duel with Burke's "brother," the mute Mongolian known as Max the Silent. He wants what Max has -- a reputation as the "widow-making wind of death" -- and Burke knows he must stop him. He wants to pacify Mortay, convince him to walk away. But when Mortay ups the stakes to include Max's infant daughter, Burke opts for a death-match of his own... his way.

Now, Burke turns for help to the members of his extraordinary street family, and to a newcomer, Belle -- the voluptuous exotic dancer who was hired to bring Burke word of the Ghost Van; a fugitive from a nightmare childhood who's learned everything the hard way; an outlaw woman-child, headstrong and fragile, who gets inside Burke's life "without the preliminaries." Belle is willing to risk everything for love and salvation, willing to bind herself to Burke-even as he's drawn headlong toward what could be his ultimate fall...

ANDREW VACHSS is an attorney in private practice specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse, and the author of Flood and Strega. He lives in New York City.

Andrew Vachss: Blue Belle. A Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 0394572289 (June, 1988), 339 p., $15.95.