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Pain Management (Burke Series #13)

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Pain Management (Burke Series #13)

Paperback(Reprint)

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Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview

Burke is back, but still lurking in the shadows, unable to return home. He is prowling the unfamiliar streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of a runaway teen. By all accounts, Rosebud Carlin is a happy, well-adjusted girl. She doesn’t fit the profile of the runaway kids Burke knows so well—and once was. But there’s something about her father

Burke knows the street script, but the actors are all strangers. Cut off from his family and his network of criminal contacts, Burke is forced into a dangerous alliance with a renegade group dedicated to providing relief to those in intractable pain by any means necessary. A bargain is struck, and the fuse is lit. Heart-stopping and hard-hitting, Pain Management is the latest bout in Andrew Vachss's thrilling reign as undisputed champ of brass knuckles noir.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375726477
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/08/2002
Series:	Burke Series , #13
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.92(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

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.

Read an Excerpt

Burke is back, but still lurking in the shadows, unable to return home. He is prowling the unfamiliar streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of a runaway teen. By all accounts, Rosebud Carlin is a happy, well-adjusted girl. She doesn't fit the profile of the runaway kids Burke knows so well...and once was. But there's something about her father...
Burke knows the street script, but the actors are all strangers. Cut off from his family and his network of criminal contacts, Burke is forced into a dangerous alliance with a renegade group dedicated to providing relief to those in intractable pain by any menas necessary. A bargain is struck, and the fuse is lit. Heart-stopping and hard-hitting, Pain Management is the latest bout in Andrew Vachss's thrilling reign as undisputed champ of brass knuckles noir.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Some of the cleanest, meanest, stripped-down-and-sparkling prose ever penned.” –Austin Chronicle

“A beautifully brutal combination of pulpy noir and social commentary. . . . Vachss’s writing remains raw and hungry, with an epidermis of rage barely containing an infinite core of sadness.” –The Miami Herald

“Andrew Vachss could send his hero Burke to Mayberry, and he’d still manage to uncover a dark underbelly of sin and corruption.” –Capital Times

“Gritty, fast-paced . . . One of the most hard-boiled and important crime series ever published.” –Huntsville Times

From the Publisher

Following a failed assassination attempt, shadowy New York City man-for-hire Burke is laying low in the Pacific Northwest. But that all changes when the professional border-crosser who calls herself Burke's wife brings him a job tracking a runaway teen. It doesn't take long for Burke to establish his presence on the streets. And it's only a matter of days before Burke is introduced to a fanatical group of criminal Samaritans dedicated to supplying adequate drugs to those suffering from chronic pain. Now, trapped in unfamiliar territory, Burke is on his own, navigating in darkness to rescue a girl who may not want to be saved.

bn.com

Fans of the Burke series who cheered the author's sudden relocation of his surly protagonist to the Pacific Northwest in Dead and Gone (2000) will be pleased by this latest installment. Burke, the sociopath ex-con with a reputation for hunting down "freaks" with an appetite for children, lands a new job combing Portland's seamy underbelly for a runaway teenager. Cut off from the members of the outlaw New York "family" who graced his earlier adventures, Vachss's postmodern Robin Hood continues to develop his web of West Coast contacts. A tip from his new lady love, Gem (who managed to survive the previous book when Burke himself nearly did not), leads the mauled Burke into a labyrinth of prostitution, deception and murder. Besides dealing with the oddities in the runaway's family, Burke must divine the motives of a cop chasing a serial killer preying on prostitutes, a stylish pimp with a long and dangerous reach, and a crusader against pain (or is she just a drug runner?) for whose mission the book is named. Providing clues as always through stepped-on snatches of dialogue, here Vachss finally lets his secondary characters speak for themselves, as opposed to being wholly defined by Burke's inner growl. While the dark worlds through which Burke journeys are not for the squeamish (Vachss draws upon his own experiences as an attorney for abused children), the author has managed to keep his violent series alive and vigorously kicking. 40,000 first printing. (Sept.) Forecast: Vachss's ultra-loyal readers seem unfazed by Burke's retreat from New York, and can be reliably expected to flock to this latest tale of the hard-boiled semi-hero's adventures. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Vachss will be thrilled to see that Burke is back in action. Presumed dead after an assassination attempt in Dead and Gone, Burke has gone into hiding in Oregon with his partner, Gem, who calls herself his wife. Biding his time in the hope of eventually making it back to New York, he takes on the task of tracking down a runaway teenage girl. As he scours the streets of New YorkBurke stumbles upon a clandestine society that illegally obtains prescription drugs for people suffering from extreme pain. Believing that they may ultimately hold the key to finding the runaway, he reluctantly agrees to help them obtain a stash of a revolutionary new drug. As Burke becomes drawn into the society's cause, what he finds instead is that he must deal with his own "pain management." Even though he has taken Burke out of his usual surroundings, Vachss has written another winner. For larger fiction collections. Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In a weirdly unexpected spin on the saga of ultra-tough Burke, Vachss drops his freelance avenger onto the mean streets of Portland, and produces his most conventional case to date. Burke's left the Big Apple behind, along with his Gotham menagerie-Max the Silent, Clarence, the Mole, Mama, Wolfe-and most recently his stint in prison. Rest and rebuild, comes the word from his regulars back home. So while he's thieving and shacking up with Gem, the woman who calls herself his wife, Burke decides to take the most old-fashioned kind of case a private eye ever gets: a vanished daughter. Rosebud Carpin, 16, has packed her guitar and knapsack, left a note for her parents, arranged to keep in touch surreptitiously with her girlfriend, and quietly disappeared. Her moneyed father, a one-time political activist turned architect, is worried about what she might be up to and with whom, but Burke's nightly patrols of Portland's red-light district don't turn up Rosebud, or any reassuring news about her. What they do turn up is one Ann O. Dyne, a flamboyant pain-management guru who's devoted herself to stealing pharmaceuticals and dispensing them to near-death patients whose access to painkillers is limited by their wallets or HMO's or various laws. Ann insists that she can get a line on Rosebud for a price Burke is in a unique position to pay: some professional help in heisting a truckload of drugs that would do her network of clients a lot more good than their official addressees. The result is the usual elaborate series of no-trust trades, many of them even more muffled by testosterone than usual, before a nifty climactic surprise worthy of the retro whodunits Burke wouldn't look at twice. Bettergrab this round of the usual Burke pleasures fast before the hardcase settles down in a suburban tract house with a white picket fence. First printing of 40,000

Kirkus Reviews