Burke, Vachss' anti-hero, is a quasi-detective, part vigilante, who has a soft spot for protecting children. We learn during the course of the novel that he grew up in an orphanage, has no memory of either parent, has served time in prison, where he learned much of his "trade" from the "Prof" who speaks in bizarre rhymes, and was a mercenary in Africa.In this novel (basically your good, fun, fast, read - great for trains, planes or buses), he is summoned to help protect a young boy whose mother Burke had known briefly in the distant past. Randy, who lives in a very wealthy area, is concerned because many of his friends have been committing suicide, and he thinks someone, or something, is driving them to it. All of them have been treated by the Crystal Cove mental facility, and all of them took their lives within ninety days after having been treated and released. Sensing there may be money to be made in the arrangement somewhere, Burke is soon in the middle of a bizarre
scheme to hide people by giving them new identities, and a concomitant blackmail scheme mixed up with some rather kinky sex.
Burke is not perhaps as interesting a character as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, but he certainly keeps your attention.
