Crime and suspense novelist Max Allan Collins has been writing about a professional hitman codenamed Quarry for 40 years. I picked up the first book back in my teens and fell in love with the hard-hitting sparse style and the no-nonsense approach the author has with the character.
Quarry, real name unknown, served in Vietnam and came home to find his wife in bed with someone else. Rather than kill his wife, Quarry killed the guy by kicking the jack out from under the car he was working on. After the trial and the decision to get him off the front page because he was a returning vet, Quarry got recruited and codenamed by a man he knew only as the Broker.
In 2006, Hard Case Crime books gave readers the last book in the series. It was the first new Quarry novel in years. Not only was the book a success, but it created a demand for more Quarry novels and it reignited Collins’s passion for the character. Unfortunately, there was that whole business about it being the “last” Quarry novel.
Thankfully, Collins decided to take us back to the other end of the spectrum and deliver The First Quarry to Hard Case Crime. The novel details the first actual hit-for-hire that Quarry accepted from the Broker.
The time is 1970. The Vietnam War still rages. Long hair and bell bottoms are still in fashion. Civil Rights movements still fill the news and the streets. No one has a cell phone. And the Mafia still has the toughest crooks on the street.
That last becomes important as the novel progresses.
In the beginning, Quarry is assigned to observe and kill a university professor who’s committing adultery every chance he gets. With free love still in the air and AIDS a thing of the future, the professor gets a lot of chances. In fact, his dance card stays so full that Quarry has trouble figuring out a time to punch the guy’s dance card once and for all.
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