I got an Andrew Vachss book ("Down in the Zero",number 7 in his Burke series) as a xmas gift many years ago.
Finished it and I was not that impressed with DitZ, but
impressed enough to go back to number one ("Flood", 1985) in his series "centered on a man named Burke and his battle against child abusers" (wikipedia) and 3/4 through I would say it's good, rough, direct, streetwise modern noir with a big heart.
http://www.vachss.com/av_novels/flood.html
He himself is quite the character as well, here's an interview from 1992:
http://www.vachss.com/av_articles/rtcl_wkgd.html
"More than any contemporary in America, he has lived what he writes" ... "He receives death threats almost weekly" and so on.
And here's another one from
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/interviews/andrew-vachss
"When I began writing I had the devil's own time dealing with reviewers who said what I was writing about was a product of my sick imagination."
I've seen this quoted on/by Vachss several time - when he was starting out no-one believed him and he struggled with getting published.
Sadly we now know we live in world of sickos: Catholic priests, famous DJs, UK establishment figures in alleged abuse/potentially murder and the last
case to hit the press, the aptly named Marie Black and her motley crew:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/28/woman...ex-ring-jailed-for-at-least-24-years-5411268/