Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [0]
Title Page
Dedication
Acclaim
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
About the Author
Books By Andrew Vachss
Copyright Page
For
Victor Chapin
Yale Lee Mandel
Iberus Hacker (a.ka. Dan Marcum)
Wesley Everest
very different actors
who all left this junkyard of a planet
to work a better room
ACCLAIM FOR Andrew Vachss
“Its lower-depths/big-city ambience is as authentic as the lawyer/author who makes it his own . . . but it has humor and humanity all its own.”
—Nick Pileggi
“Real class . . . Vachss shows a richly convincing familiarity with the detective’s trade. . . . Wonderfully impressive.”
—Kirkus
“Among writers of suspense, Andrew Vachss’s work stands out for its substance, integrity, and absorbing readability.”
—Richard North Patterson
“Andrew Vachss bursts forth with more of the slashing prose that has earned him a reputation as one who gives no quarter in his exposure of the evils of the human mind. The man knows whereof he speaks.”
—Newsday
“A steamy, fetid world delivered with convincing authenticity. . . . Astonishing.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Andrew Vachss’s work is all about horror, outrage, moral indignation and the blood of commitment. Vachss is the voice of righteousness confronting a powerful and cowardly evil.”
—James Ellroy
“There’s no way to put a [Vachss book] down once you’ve begun. . . . The plot hooks are engaging and the one-liners pierce like bullets.”
—Detroit Free Press
“Outside the herd of self-serving, navel-magnifying American novelists, one man walks tall and almost alone: Andrew Vachss. . . . You can read him for razor edged entertainment, or you can read him for help in understanding the monsters who stalk America’s streets.”
—James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor
“Vachss seems bottomlessly knowledgeable about the depth and variety of human twistedness.”
—The New York Times
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The ultimate poverty is to fail to acknowledge your debts. For the material in this book and in others to come, I am indebted to many people, some as close as my blood, some forever to be my enemies. I will never forget any of them.
INTRODUCTION
TO THE VINTAGE EDITION
Flood was not my first published book. The first effort was nonfiction: a textbook on juvenile violence and proposed solutions which arose from my stint running a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. That first book was a “critical” success, but it never reached outside the “profession.” An itinerant preacher with a then-unacceptable brand of gospel that we make our own monsters and build our own beasts, that pervasive abuse and neglect of children is a greater danger to our species than cocaine and Communism combined, I longed for a bigger congregation. So I turned to “fiction,” essentially adding plot, characters (keeping the characteristics) and (I hoped) sufficient narrative force to get the reader engrossed sufficiently to present my case.
But I couldn’t get anyone to publish Flood, despite the best efforts of a wonderful, dedicated agent (Victor Chapin, to whom this book is dedicated) who maintained his belief in me despite reams of rejection letters which looked like photocopies: all saying what a wonderful writer I was, what a great “ear” for dialogue I had, what a “powerful narrative voice,” but . . . the material was “just impossible.