Andrew Vachss: Only Child (2003)

From the Publisher:
It's been years since Burke has been home, years since he's seen his "family" and worked in the underbelly of New York City. Although his appearance has changed, his reputation grown dusty and his wallet thin, his skills and his crew remain razor sharp. So when he is contacted by a mob boss to investigate the murder of his illegitimate daughter, Vonni, Burke takes the job and begins searching for an unspeakably brutal killer.

Posing as a casting director looking for tomorrow's stars, Burke reaches out to the high school students who knew Vonni, and may know the identity of the killer. Before long he unearths a perverse enterprise - a young director pursuing a brutal new type of cinema verité.

Andrew Vachss: Only Child. A Burke Novel. Vintage Books, ISBN: 1400030986 (October, 2003), 275 p., $13.00.

Andrew Vachss: Only Child (2002)

From the Publisher:
After years on the run, Burke is desperate to return to his native New York, the only way he can reconnect with his outlaw “family.” But to survive in their part of the City, where reputation is everything, Burke must take major risks to reestablish his presence. So when a Mafia man contacts him about the murder-as-message of his sixteen-year-old daughter -- the offspring of what he calls an “outside the tribe” affair that he must keep secret at all costs -- Burke's depleted bankroll persuades him to step out of the shadows and do something he hasn't done in years... actually investigate a crime.

Burke needs cover to penetrate the teenage subculture of the Long Island town where the girl lived and died, so he puts together a crew of gifted role-players, including a pair of lesbian “power exchangers” who market their special brand of sex on the Internet. When Burke himself surfaces as a casting director, seeking tomorrow's stars for a movie to be shot on location, the investigation quickly spins off into uncharted depths. What he discovers is a new kind of filmmaking, a new kind of violence, and a predator unlike any he's ever known. When they meet head-on over a brutal work of cinéma vérité, only one of them will survive the final cut.

Andrew Vachss: Only Child. A Burke Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 0375414878 (October, 2002), 275 p., $24.00.