Choice of Evil

When his girlfriend, Crystal Beth is gunned down at a gay rights rally in Central Park, Burke, the underground man-for-hire and expert hunter of predators, vows vengeance. But someone beats him to the task: a shadowy killer who calls himself Homo Erectus and who seems determined to wipe gay bashers from the face of the earth. As the killer’s body count rises, most citizens are horrified, but a few see him as a hero and they hire Burke to track him down . . . and help him escape.

In Choice of Evil, Burke is forced to confront his most harrowing challenge: the mind of an obsessive serial killer. And soon the emotionally void method behind the killer’s madness becomes terrifyingly familiar, reminding Burke of his childhood partner, Wesley, the ice-man assassin who never missed, even when the target was himself. Has Wesley come back from the dead? The whisper-stream says so. And the truth may just challenge Burke’s very sense of reality. Expertly plotted, addictively enthralling, Choice of Evil is Andrew Vachss’ most haunting tale to date.


“From the unusual opening to the last page, Choice of Evil is absolutely original, strange and just plain ole creepy. This is the best Burke adventure yet, and not to be missed.”
—Joe R. Lansdale, author of “Rumble Tumble

“Andrew is one of the best writers, and Burke one of the greatest characters of late twentieth centry fiction. Choice of Evil is a tour-de-force in the grimmest sense of the phrase. Andrew’s ability to focus his spot-beams on the bleakest aspects of human nature has never been more intense.”
—Alan Grant, author of The Bogie Man

Choice of Evil is Vachss’ darkest Burke yet, exploring man’s propensity for savagery, ice-cold cunning and wearing thin the limits of sanity.”
The Clarion-Ledger

“There is no other living American author with prose as razon-clean as Andrew Vachss . . . Vachss is a Zen warrior with a pen.”
Coast Weekly

“A gripping tale of evil, cruelty, retribution and love.”
Cleveland Plain-Dealer

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