Everybody Pays: Stories [Paperback]

Andrew Vachss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1999

A hit man defies the confines of a life sentence to avenge his sister's batterer.  An immaculately dressed man hires a street gang to extract his daughter from a Central American prison, for reasons as mysterious as they are deadly.  A two-bit graffiti artist with a taste for Nazi-ganda finds himself face-to-face with three punks out to make a mark of their own—literally—with a tattoo needle.

From neo-noir master Andrew Vachss comes Everybody Pays, 38 white-knuckle rides into a netherworld of pederasts and prostitutes, stick-up kids and fall guys—where private codes of crime and punishment pulsate beneath a surface system of law and order, and our moral  compass spins frighteningly out of control. Here is the street-grit prose that has earned Vachss comparisons to Chandler, Cain, and Hammett--and the ingenious plot twists that transform the double-cross into an expression of retribution, the dark deed into a thing of beauty. Electrifying and enigmatic, Everybody Pays is a sojourn into the nature of evil itself—a trip made all the more frightening by its proximity to our front doorstep.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Burke, Vachss's popular underground PI, is nowhere to be found in this second collection (after Born Bad, 1994) of short stories from his creator's stiletto of a pen. Fans won't much mind: Cross, the mercenary crook who's so hard he makes tough Burke seem gooey, shows up in several entries, most notably in the swift and savage title novella, which sees the Chicago-based antihero and his crew break a young woman out of a Peruvian jailAstrictly for financial reasons, of course. In this novella, as in most of Vachss's fiction, child abuse plays a pivotal role, and it's as often the author's moral outrage as it is compact plotting and sharp characterizationsAboth Vachss strengthsAthat provides the energy. In too many stories, Vachss relies on trick endings for that extra wallop (as in "Mission," where a man confesses to murder in order to land behind bars and take vengeance upon imprisoned abusers), but he also takes some admirable chances, roaming afield for five (regrettably murky) tales set in a totalitarian future and collected as being from "The Underground Series," and even one western ("Searcher"). Though many of these stories have appeared previously (and in an astonishing variety of venues, from Esquire to Amazon.com to the Swiss journal Das Magazin), they were all written recently, to be compiled into this book. With the Burke novels in general sliding downhill, it's good to see that Vachss can still rile and sting, especially via the ice man Cross and his deadly crew, who deserve to star in a full-length novel, and soon. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Vachss is widely recognized for his dark, New York City^-based Burke crime novels in which the sometime criminal and his cadre of vigilantes battle those who exploit women and children. Justice in Burke's world is never meted out by officialdom, but by a Solomon-like street code set in motion by Burke. These short stories mostly deal with the same theme, though there are some in which we see the world through the eyes of the criminal. Vachss, a lawyer who works as an advocate for abused women and children, clearly believes most abusers and killers are made not born. Stories such as "Homeless" , "Dress Up Day" (with an eerie Columbine angle), and "Last Date" all reflect that view. Mixed in are some science fiction, a little fantasy, and a novella, "Everybody Pays" , in which an abuser meets a just end in typically Vachssian style. Some of the pieces work better than others, but all are unmistakably Vachss and will attract his sizable audience. Wes Lukowsky

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (September 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375707433
• ISBN-13: 978-0375707438
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for "aggressive-violent" youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youth exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a "children's book for adults." His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, The New York Times, and many other forums. His books have been awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature Policiére, the Falcon Award, Deutschen Krimi Preis, Die Jury des Bochumer Krimi Archivs and the Raymond Chandler Award (per Giurìa a Noir in Festival, Courmayeur, Italy). Andrew Vachss' latest books include Heart Transplant (Dark Horse Books, October 2010), a collaboration with Frank Caruso that attempts to reset the cultural software as it pertains to bullying, and The Weight (Pantheon, November 2010), a crime novel. The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is vachss.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cross., July 17, 2000

By 

Dan Boice "Ryval5150" (Highlands Ranch, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everybody Pays: Stories (Paperback)

This collection is as good as, if not better than, his first collection-BORN BAD. But to fully understand this collection, read the first. They have the same themes, the same prose, and the same settings.

The Underground series focuses on tribalism of the human species in a not too distant future. Sci-fi isn't really Mr. Vachss strong suit. But dialogue and description are. Everything contained herein is shredded down to it's bare meaning. Other authors write dialogue. Mr. Vachss transcribes it. He's heard it, he's said it. Some of it's even been cursed at him.

The absolute jewel in this book, however, is the CROSS novella. Having difficulty in publishing a CROSS novel on it's own, this is the perfect setting to unveil exactly what these characters are about. Enough teasers in the lean, stabbing prose of the short stories lead into the novella. Which finally gives enough room for Cross and his crew to breathe and infiltrate into you. I had to read it twice in the same sitting, just because I wanted to read more of Cross. A character you shouldn't even like to read ABOUT much less like.

I'm now eagerly awaiting the full novel about CROSS and crew in their own series (or mini-series of books).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everybody Pays, proves it., September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Everybody Pays: Stories (Paperback)

I may not be a professional reviewer, and for those of you reading this, let me assure you that can be a good thing. I actually READ the book. I notice from some of the reviews they are very vague or worse yet, state things that are so wrong I know they never even read the work.

"Everybody Pays", my god. I have no idea how Andrew Vachss manages to write such wonderous stories so swiftly and still do all his child advocacy work. I am astounded. He has once again proven he is a master of written word.

"Proving It" is by far one of the most moving stories I have ever read. It could be considered a romance by some, but I think it has so much more depth than that. Anyone can say they love, but does that prove it?

I can't put in a category except to say that it was so powerful and Mr. Vachss captured the feeling so well that I was immediately swept up into the story, and when it was over... I sat and thought for a long time and had to read it again.

I do that with a lot of Andrew Vachss' stories. They aren't mindless pulp like so many of the books out there today. They deal with REAL feelings and REAL emotions and cause the reader to feel as they follow the characters, and most importantly to THINK about the tale when it is over. There is no greater compliment I can pass on to an author than to say his work captivated me completely and caused me think on each story, afterwards.

Mr. Vachss' work is such that friends and I can discuss it time after time and always feel we have come away with something more. I see enough mini reviews of the stories here already I wont rehash each one for you. However, let me assure you, the reader, that if you like the very best writing, and you enjoy a story which will enthrall you, and if you like written works that have REAL depth and will cause you to think on it for a long time afterwards... Actually if you can read at all, you should read "Everybody Pays", because even if you do not appreciate the things I mentioned above, before, you will after reading this book. It is, by far, a MUST read, in every sense of the word. "Everybody Pays" is a book everybody should read and it proves itself in every way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rips the nerves wide open, May 3, 2001

By 

Keris (Augusta, ME) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everybody Pays: Stories (Paperback)

Nobody frees the truth from the mud the way Andrew Vachss can. I've had enough of pain and abuse as plot-points, and I can tell you that *this* writer's never goes near that kind of exploitation. Instead, he shows the reader the anatomy of evil -- so we can *recognize* it when we see it in the real world. His fictional work ends up giving the reader a crystal clear set of textbooks on the evil that preys on our society. Why? Because after the diagnosis, the cure becomes obvious. Buy the book!