Down in the Zero

"Baby Boy Burke" it says on his birth certificate - Father Unknown. Raised in a series of foster homes, orphanages and "reform" schools, and viciously abused in each. Two prison terms and a lifetime later, Burke is still an outlaw: an urban survivalist who doesn't exist on paper, working the jagged edges of the criminal underworld. He's a man for hire, but you have to earn the right to trust him. The dark heart of six previous novels by Andrew Vachss - Flood, Strega, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, Blossom and Sacrifice - Burke's earned the title "lord of the asphalt jungle" (Washington Post). And now, after a hiatus of three years, he's back. Still mourning the death of a child whose life he took instead of saved, Burke feels the pull of the Zero - the abyss that lies beyond death. Alone with his sorrow, he's been quiet for a long time when he gets the phone call. It's from a kid named Randy claiming to be the son of a woman Burke once knew, and still owes. The kid's plush Connecticut suburb has been hit with a rash of inexplicable teenage "suicides." He's sure he could be next and he wants a bodyguard. Burke's no professional bullet-catcher, but he goes along for two reasons: Randy's mother did save him a prison stretch years ago. And the kid's neighborhood is lousy with cash. Lousy with other things too. Burke quickly discovers that the picture-perfect community hides the nerve center of an intense erotic underground where S&M sex is sold, traded...and recorded. As Burke moves down the pipeline to where the cluster suicides began, he finds himself in wealthy homes where the term "emotional abuse" takes euphemism to new heights - and depths. And when a beautiful dominatrix with an ugly secretintroduces him to a hideous new version of "legal" kiddie porn, Burke's rage drags him back from the Zero's edge and into a shadowy war with barely visible, shape-shifting enemies. Consumed by grave-dancing with his own demons, Burke is quickly cornered. But his trappers are abo