In Vachss`s acclaimed first novel, we are introduced to Burke, the avenging angel of abused children. Burke`s client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster -- so she can kill him with her bare hands. In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss`s renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted vigilante to follow a child`s murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is a setup for a mugging and every tenement has something rotten in the basement. Fearfully knowing, buzzing with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point bullet, Flood is Burke at his deadliest -- and Vachss at the peak of his form.