Signwave — Andrew H. Vachss

Once a mercenary, later an assassin, and now struggling to maintain a peaceful life, Dell is marked by marrow-deep loyalty and no-limit protective instincts for his wife, Dolly, a former battlefield nurse. When Dolly enters the fray of a neighborhood dispute and receives a thinly veiled threat for her trouble, Dell instantly reverts to guerrilla tactics. His target is George Byron Benton, a prominent local figure who pushes an inscrutable agenda with the deadly patience of a Gila monster -- and whose public life may all be an elaborate disguise. Dell is quickly down to cold objectives: decode Benton's end-game, calculate the tactics needed to recapture Dolly's stolen sense of security ... and execute.

With Andrew Vachss's trademark razor-sharp dialogue and inimitable prose style, SIGNWAVE -- the final entry in the Aftershock trilogy -- is guaranteed to reverberate powerfully long after it has been read.