{"product_id":"signwave-isbn-9781101910320","title":"SignWave","description":"Once a mercenary, later an assassin, and now struggling to maintain a peaceful life, Dell is marked by marrow-deep loyalty and no-limit protective instincts for his wife, Dolly, a former battlefield nurse. When Dolly enters the fray of a neighborhood dispute and receives a thinly veiled threat for her trouble, Dell instantly reverts to guerrilla tactics. His target is George Byron Benton, a prominent local figure who pushes an inscrutable agenda with the deadly patience of a Gila monster—and whose public life may all be an elaborate disguise. Dell is quickly down to cold objectives: decode Benton’s end-game, calculate the tactics needed to recapture Dolly’s stolen sense of security . . . and execute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith Andrew Vachss’s trademark razor-sharp dialogue and inimitable prose style, \u003ci\u003eSignWave\u003c\/i\u003e—the final entry in the Aftershock trilogy—is guaranteed to reverberate powerfully long after it has been read.\u003cu\u003ePraise for Andrew Vachss and \u003ci\u003eSignWave\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e“Vachss seems bottomlessly knowledgeable about the depth and variety of human twistedness.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Vachss’s writing is like a dark rollercoaster ride of fear, love, and hate.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Times-Picayune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An extended meditation on what Dell aptly calls ‘the zen of violence’. . . . Fans of the series will lose sleep.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Entertaining. . . . Lots of assassin lessons and killing lore make turning the pages a learning experience in the dark arts as much as a riveting read.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[Vachss] writes a hypnotically violent prose made up of equal parts of broken concrete block and razor wire.” \u003ci\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Sun-Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“To read Andrews Vachss at his best is to take a ride on the dark side, where the plight of the oppressed and vulnerable . . . becomes the catalyst for revenge-fueled street justice.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Andrew Vachss is unique among modern writers; no one else comes close to the raw power and intellectual ambiguity that he manifests so elegantly, so coldly.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eThe Clarion-Ledger\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“There is no other living American author with prose as razor-clean as Andrew Vachss, and there is no other writer willing to go so far into such dark extremes, either. When Vachss turns the juice on, the bad guys sizzle.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eThe Austin Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Vachss is red-hot and as serious as a punctured lung.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“There’s no way to put a [Vachss book] down once you’ve begun. . . . The one-liners pierce like bullets.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eDetroit Free Press\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Vachss explores the horrific intersection of victims and victimizers, evil and avengers. The setting has moved from urban to small-town, but the eternal conflict is as it ever was.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Razor-edged and compulsively readable; the pages fly by.” —\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Vachss impresses again with his new dark and compelling thriller.” —Largehearted Boy.com\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Many writers try to cover the same ground as Vachss. A handful are as good. None are better.” —\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eAndrew 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 \u003ci\u003eParade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times,\u003c\/i\u003e among other publications. He died in 2021.Before Dolly, I had given up many things.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Some taken from me, before I learned. Some after, when I had to discard weight to move quickly.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Both my childhoods—the one that had been wiped from my memory before I ran from that “clinic” in Belgium, and the briefer but so much richer one that I’d had with Luc—gone forever.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e To be a mercenary may not have been my fate, but it was the only option I had. When that first five years was up, I left La Légion. I’d served long enough to walk away . . . but to where? The five years gave me French citizenship, but I didn’t want that any more than the French wanted me. No \u003ci\u003egitan\u003c\/i\u003e could be truly French, and that part of my chromosomal chain was stamped across my face as clearly as the thickened slab of scar tissue on my wrist. And I couldn’t cover my face with a sleeve.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Soldiering was all I knew. I went back to Darkville, and signed on with one of the mercenary outfits. Being a former \u003ci\u003elégionnaire \u003c\/i\u003ewas all the credential I needed. They knew no man would make such a claim falsely—too many of us had later become soldiers-for-hire to take that much risk.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But waiting with Olaf as he stayed alive long enough to deliver his only legacy, that was when I decided. That was the moment I knew that the day would come when I would walk away from soldiering for paymasters, and never return.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Still, in a strange way, I have always followed his rules. Killing for money, that I did. But when Dolly accepted me, that part of me was gone—the man she wanted was no killer-for-money, and I \u003ci\u003ehad \u003c\/i\u003eto be that man.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e#\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And now, so many years later, I was an impossible construct. A force mathematics could not rule; an assassin who once would kill anyone for money and now would forfeit his own life with equal lack of concern.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Worse, he would do that only for the one person who could really, truly betray him.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e # \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003espent half my life searching for what I would spend the rest of it defending.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e That wasn’t some random thought. It wasn’t something I ever consciously considered—it was simply the way things were.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If others are trying to kill you, “Why?” is a question you get to speculate about only if they don’t succeed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Simple” isn’t the same as stupid. My world has been black-and-white ever since I could remember.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But my memory—my \u003ci\u003eactual \u003c\/i\u003ememory, a past I could look back on—that started much later than most. I’m not even sure how old I was—nine, ten, eleven, even?—when I escaped that “clinic.” That’s the word they used for it, but it wasn’t healing anyone. Or curing them, or whatever clinics are supposed to be doing. It just kept us.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And there really was no “us.” I didn’t actually understand this until many years later. Not until I was a \u003ci\u003elégionnaire \u003c\/i\u003edid I learn that even POW camps aren’t what they appear to be. The razor wire and the armed men walking the perimeter—some with shoulder-strapped machine pistols, some with dogs—you’d think that was just one side guarding its captives. But those captives weren’t a single unit. They probably killed more of their own than any guards did; the only weapon they would need for that was betrayal.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e None expected to be traded for their side’s captives. Men awaiting execution are desperate. Men who would \u003ci\u003ewelcome \u003c\/i\u003eexecution instead of the daily “interrogations” are driven past the edge of sanity. Digging a tunnel is a madman’s task. But the plotting, that never stopped. And was never shared.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When the guards learned of a plot, or even discovered a weapon, some captives died. Not just the ones the guards took away; those who had betrayed them, too. The most deadly thing in those camps was always their inhabitants—suspicion was God, and traitors were sacrificed on that altar all the time.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If any of the captives wondered if perhaps the man they killed hadn’t actually been \u003ci\u003eproved \u003c\/i\u003ea traitor, they would keep such thoughts to themselves.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e No barbed wire had surrounded my childhood. There were no patrols. The adults—doctors, nurses, orderlies—they were kind to us. The food was plentiful, and it was good food, not a prisoner’s slop. The place was always the same temperature, and the inside air was clean.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But the children inside that place had nothing in common, not even whatever brought us there. Some kids were malformed, huge heads on stick bodies. Some drooled. Some never stopped talking, in a language I didn’t understand. Some hardly moved.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e All we had to share was the truth, and it wasn’t a truth we \u003ci\u003ecould \u003c\/i\u003eshare. Only this one truth: It had to be very expensive to keep us there. All that equipment, even the buildings and the grounds, never mind the salaries. So, really, \u003ci\u003etwo \u003c\/i\u003etruths: whoever put us there didn’t lack for money . . . and didn’t want us in their lives.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I knew what “retrograde amnesia” was. Not because I was so smart, but because the doctors explained it to me. That was why I had no memory of anything before that place, they said. They also said that, if the trauma that had wiped my mind had been powerful enough, those memories might never come back.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “You have to start from \u003ci\u003enow\u003c\/i\u003e,” they would say. Kindly, but unyielding. They either didn’t know what had erased any memory of my life before I woke up in that place, or wouldn’t tell me. For me, those were the same.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They would say this “Start from \u003ci\u003enow\u003c\/i\u003e” as if it was a magic chant. But they never would say where I would be going once I started.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Somehow, I knew I could not “start” unless I stopped waiting. One night, I just dropped out the second-floor window of my room onto the soft, moist grass of the manicured lawn, and walked into the darkness.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e How long it took, I couldn’t be sure—time is more difficult to measure when you move only in darkness. I know I walked all the way to Paris. There, I became a gutter rat. I was sometimes very cold. I was always hungry. But it never occurred to me to try and return to that clinic.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then Luc found me.","brand":"Vintage Crime\/Black Lizard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302644469989,"sku":"NP9781101910320","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101910320.jpg?v=1767736615","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/signwave-isbn-9781101910320","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}