Review by C.J. Bunce
Forty-three years after author Max Allan Collins published his novel Quarry’s Deal in 1976, he has penned the sequel, Killing Quarry, what he calls the last of a sub-series of his famous anti-hero Quarry’s exploits selling his hitman services to targets of other hitmen. Killing Quarry is available now from Hard Case Crime, the 15th novel of the Vietnam vet whose return from the service wasn’t at all what he expected, and the subject of his own Cinemax series, Quarry, reviewed here at borg last year. Collins has finished or co-authored nearly as many crime novels with crime writer Mickey Spillane posthumously, reflecting the prolific nature of Collins’ crime writing and expertise, plus Collins’ noteworthy Road to Perdition, five other book series and countless tie-in novels. Killing Quarry is great fun, a solid retro fix, and true throwback to those action-packed, guns and sex pulp novels of the 1970s.
Collins catches up with Quarry as he’s pulled another name from the Broker’s hit list, acquired after the Broker’s death more than a decade ago. The Broker was the man who first tapped Quarry for a life of murder for money when he returned from the war with few prospects and a cheating wife. Quarry takes on both roles as hitman this time, both planning and monitoring the target in a town a few hours away, ultimately to make the hit himself, an enterprise usually split between two partners to the job. But it doesn’t take long for Quarry to realize the hitman he is after is pursuing his own target, right back to Quarry’s own neighborhood, right across the street in direct eyeshot to Quarry’s own retreat. The killing life is wearing on Quarry after all these years, but at least he is prepared and knows what is coming for him. He’ll be ready, so long as he doesn’t fall asleep on the job.
Quarry is joined in the 1980s this time by Lu, the blonde Asian-American woman who became his lover in Quarry’s Deal in the 1970s. She’s a killer in her own right, and enmeshed with the system of brokers and hitmen that have now become a regional game of hitmen and agents beginning to trip over each other’s territories. Both Quarry and Lu deserve each other–they are both getting too old for killing and want to stack up their funds and retire to some tropical paradise. They walked away from each other years ago. Maybe this time it will work out for them?
Collins continues to produce smartly written situations and flawed characters trying to make the best of bad situations. Killing Quarry continues that gritty tone Collins fans will be accustomed to reading, with doses of violence and sex typical of 1970s period crime novels. And Lu and Quarry make the perfect pair of conflicted killers.
Artist Paul Mann returns for another great painted cover for the Hard Case Crime series.
Recommended for fans of crime novels, Collins’s writing, and the Quarry TV series and novels, pick up Killing Quarry now in its first printing, available here at Amazon.
