Blue Belle by Andrew Vachss

Jamie’s staff pick:
Better order more than one copy of this thriller. Readers will be tearing the pages apart to find out what happens next as Vachss reaches new heights, and depths, in this third entry in his investigator Burke series. Again the hero’s special morality draws him into a case involving the sleaziest sex factories in New York, darting from strip joints to massage parlors to a mysterious Ghost Van that kidnaps very young girls for kiddie-porn and snuff videos. Burke’s unorthodox “family” of helpers are here, and new love interest Belle participates in some very steamy sex scenes. Violence laced with the bizarre, the super-cool, and wit, this novel certifies Vachss as a first-rate writer on crime, the underworld, and the pits of the human heart and soul.