Haiku

Haiku: A NovelFrom the author of the acclaimed Burke series: a searing new novel that follows a band of homeless outcasts on a journey to recover what each has lost. Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as a master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless "clanger" who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building even vermin avoid. Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster's library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster's precious collection.Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building's destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man's questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer.Underground: A screenplay by Andrew VachssIn this lacerating screenplay, Andrew Vachss chronicles life in the "Underground," a society built by survivors of a cataclysm known only as "The Terror," where the wrong side of the human race came out on top. The world is hyper-controlled. The only "news" is on the omnipresent Info-Boards. Scrolling across each is the reward for capture of any Book Boy, the last journalists. Their truths are sprayed on the walls in their unique shade of blue: IF IT'S WRITTEN IN BLUE, IT MUST BE TRUE. Underground is a powerful vision of a future world where the eternal struggle between the forces that can preserve or destroy society are engaged in epic battle.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.