Sacrifice

What—or who—could turn a gifted little boy into a murderous thing that calls itself "Satan's Child"? In search of an answer, a man named Burke travels from a festering welfare hotel to a neat frame house where a voodoo priestess presides over a congregation of assassins.  For this vigilante and unlicensed private eye has made it his business to defend the small victims whom the law has failed—even a child who has been made into a killer.

Gripping and chillingly knowledgeable about the mechanisms of evil, Sacrifice is a thriller of savage authority from one of the best crime writers of our generation.

"Powerful... mesmerizing in its intensity."- Los Angeles Times

"Vaschss's writing is as gritty as ever... It's doubtful there's another fictional private eye who can summon up in the reader as powerful—and powerfully conflicting—emotions as Burke can."-Newsday

"Vachss is a contemporary master... Decidedly hard-boiled, his prose is as lean, tough-edged and brittle as the man who is his protagonist."- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A harrowing tale in which outcasts are the moral heroes and the people who belong to civilization are corrupt... An absolute original... Andrew Vachss has become a cult favorite, and for good reason."- Cosmopolitan

Andrew Vachss’s many books include the Burke novels and two previous collections of short stories. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, and The New York Times, among other publications. He died in 2021.A Burke Novel