Andrew Vachss books

Aftershock Reading Order

Anthologies

Batman

Batman: Mini Graphic Novels Reading Order

Burke Reading Order

Cross Reading Order

Graphic Novels

Hap & Leonard Collections Reading Order

L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Short Stories/Novellas

Short Story Collections

Standalone Novels

Andrew Vachss (1942-2021) was a New York attorney whose legal career focused entirely on representing children and youth. He spent decades handling cases of child abuse and neglect, and that work bled directly into his fiction. His novels are dark, angry, and street-level, written with the authority of someone who spent his days in courtrooms and juvenile detention centers fighting for kids who had no one else.

His best-known work is the Burke series, which ran for eighteen novels starting with Flood in 1985. Burke is a career criminal and unlicensed investigator who lives off the grid in New York City, surrounded by a self-made family of outcasts. Each book sends Burke after predators who target children, and Vachss used the series to explore the real-world mechanics of child exploitation with an insider’s knowledge. Outside of Burke, Vachss wrote standalone crime novels like The Weight and Two Trains Running, contributed stories to anthologies, and worked in comics with his Cross graphic novel series and a Batman novel.

Vachss also published nonfiction about juvenile violence and co-edited anthologies that raised money for PROTECT, a child advocacy organization. His writing style is spare and hard-boiled, shaped more by his legal briefs than by literary ambition. He saw fiction as another weapon in his fight for abused children, and every book he wrote carried that mission.