Andrew Vachss is one of my favorite tough-guy novelists. Generally, no one writes them meaner or leaner than Vachss. He’s got the inside track on a lot of sex crimes, particularly pedophilia and child-rape, which are special topics to him.

When he’s not writing bestselling fiction about these two potentially stomach-turning subjects, he’s practicing law to save kids from these predators and put those predators away for ever. In some ways, in real life Vachss is an even larger hero than his iconic hijacker/gunman/profiler, Burke.

Vachss has been writing these novels since Flood was published in 1985, and I’ve been reading them since I found the paperback in 1986. Terminal, this year’s release, is the 17th in the series.

I love Burke. He’s a hardened criminal with no remorse in him for people he takes advantage of. He usually operates cons, selling information that’s no good or forgeries to people who intend to use it for evil pursuits. Burke justifies it, and I’ve always bought into his justification, though I wouldn’t do it myself.

He was raised and mistreated by the State, in institutions as well as foster homes. He never had a chance and he knows it. He still doesn’t have one. So he lives his life in the shadows, and that provides a vicarious thrill that I haven’t gotten over even twenty-plus years later.

He’s also got a “family” of other people who were just as broken as he was, yet who refused to roll over and die. There’s Max the Silent, a deaf and dumb Mongolian martial arts master who is immediate death to anyone that he’s decided must die. The Prof is the black con man who taught Burke how to survive in prison, then on the streets. The Mole is a Jewish techno-wizard, a savant with anything electrical or explosive.

Michelle is the ex-streetwalker transvestite who was surgically altered when she got the money together and serves as their social engineer. Wesley was the pistoleer of the group, and no one was more deadly with a firearm. Mama is the Chinese restaurant owner who’s always served as their bank and a place of operations.

Over the years, Burke and Vachss – and the readers – have added to that family. And, sadly, they’ve taken away.