Everybody Pays »

Andrew Vachss, an attorney in private practice specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse, is the country’s best recognized and most widely sought after spokesperson on crimes against children. He is also a bestselling novelist and short story writer, whose works include Flood (1985), the novel which first introduced Vachss’ series character Burke, Strega (1987), Choice of Evil (1999), and Dead and Gone (2000). His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and The Observer, and he is a contributor to ABA Journal, Journal of Psychohistory, New England Law Review, The New York Times, and Parade.

Vachss has worked as a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a caseworker in New York, and a professional organizer. He was the director of an urban migrants re-entry center in Chicago and another for ex-cons in Boston. After managing a maximum-security prison for violent juvenile offenders, he published his first book, a textbook, about the experience. He was also deeply involved in the relief effort in Biafra, now Nigeria.

For ten years, Vachss’ law practice combined criminal defense with child protection, until, with the success of his novels, it segued exclusively into the latter, which is his passion. Vachss calls the child protective movement “a war,” and considers his writing as powerful a weapon as his litigation.

From neo-noir master Vachss comes a second collection of stories following the success of Born Bad--street-grit prose that has earned him comparisons to Chandler, Cain and Hammett.

Electrifying and enigmatic, Everybody Pays is the edgy and engrossing collection of forty-four fascinating short stories from esteemed neo-noir writer Andrew Vachss. This original collection from Vintage Crime/Black Lizard brings together the strange tales of the desperate and the damned: a phone-sex hooker, a bluesman on the run, a hitman and an exotic dancer trying to find another score, and a group of children struggling to survive in a futuristic underworld. The title novella continues Vachss' popular CROSS series, which is the basis for a film in development at Warner Brothers.

Following the success of Born Bad, Vachss delivers another sojourn into the nature of evil itself-a trip made all the more frightening by its close proximity to our front doorstep. We hope that you will join us in celebrating the twisted talents of Andrew Vachss and find Everybody Pays to be as potent, as addictive, and as terrifying as we have.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Vachss is a contemporary master.