Andrew H. Vachss

"When a calculating predator threatens his loved ones, mercenary soldier Dell attempts to track down a killer who possesses an uncanny talent for disguise." --

When the shining star of the girls' softball team shoots and kills the most popular boy in school, Dolly, friend to the local teenage girls, asks her husband Dell to uncover the true motive behind the inexplicable crime.

"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 lover's lane into a killing field. It's here that Burke meets Blossom, the brilliant, beautiful young woman who has he own reasons for finding the murderer--and her own idea of vengeance." --

The time, 1959-and America. The place-a small, entirely corrupt Midwestern burg named Locke City, currently owned top to bottom by homegrown Royal Beaumont. Crippled by a childhood disease, Royal rules from a wheelchair-throne; few, though, have ever doubted that his power is absolute. Or not until now, when rival mobs-one Irish, one Italian-suddenly sense windows of opportunity. They lurk at Locke City's perimeter and sniff around Royal's honey-pots-prostitution,...

Late one night, Michael--an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself--spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit a band of homeless outcasts to search for her. But news that a building is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new...