Aftershock - by Andrew Vachss (Paperback)

About the Book

When the shining star of the girls' softball team shoots and kills the most popular boy in school, Dolly, friend to the local teenage girls, asks her husband Dell to uncover the true motive behind the inexplicable crime.

Book Synopsis

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES

Dell, an ex-Legionnaire was working as a mercenary when he first saw Dolly, a nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières. When they later married, Dell abandoned his work, and Dolly shed her identity. But not her calling--she became a teacher, confidant, and defender of dozens of teenagers in their Coastal Oregon village. When the star softball pitcher guns down a popular boy on the last day of school, Dolly knows this is no "school shooting". She goes all-in to protect "Mighty Mary" McCoy, even to the extent of unleashing her lethal husband.

As Dolly uses her contacts to gain access to medical secrets, Dell returns to his no-boundaries past. Using guile, extortion, shadow networks--and, finally, an act of terrorism--he uncovers the secret MaryLou was willing to sacrifice her own life to protect . . . a soul-killing rite of passage demanded of the town's most vulnerable girls, with her baby sister next on that list.

Review Quotes

"Andrew Vachss impresses again with his new, dark and compelling thriller." --Largehearted Boy

"The baddest noir stylist of them all." --Kirkus Reviews

"Razor-edged and compulsively readable, the pages fly by." --Library Journal

"Disquieting but engrossing. . . . Vachss explores the horrific intersection of victims and victimizers, evil and avengers. The setting has moved from urban to small town, but the eternal conflict is as it ever was." --Booklist

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.