β Scribed by Max Allan Collins
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Indefatigable genre veteran Collins brought back his hit-man hero Quarry two years ago (The Last Quarry, 2006) after a 30-year hiatus. Now he flashes way back to reveal how Quarry got in the killing business. Naturally, it started in Vietnam, where neβer-do-well Quarry found something he was good atβkilling people; later, after a wrong turn or two back in the States, he hooks up with a broker who runs a murder-for-hire business. Quarryβs first target: a philandering college professor whose latest conquest happens to be the coed daughter of a Chicago mafioso. Rationalizing that the prof is a dead man whether or not Quarry does the deed, our antihero takes the job. Like Lawrence Block in his hit-man series starring the similarly one-named Keller, Collins manages the neat trick of engendering sympathy for a killer by muddying the moral waters: plot complications change the terms of the deal, requiring Quarry to do his killing out of self-preservation rather than cold-blooded commerce. Either way, Collins knows the terrain, mixing pulp-style action with just enough character building to keep us going. Great entertainment from a proβs pro. --Bill Ott
Violent and volatile and packed with sexualityΓ’β¬Β¦classic pulp fiction --USA Today
Collins witty, hard boiled prose would make Raymond Chandler proud --Entertainment Weekly
As cool as an Eskimo Pie on a hot summer day and as sharp as a Ginsu knife --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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BIG MAN ON CAMPUS Crime fiction readers know Quarry, the ruthless killer-for-hire, from Max Allan Collins acclaimed novels most recently *THE LAST QUARRY*, which told the story of the assassins final assignment (and was the basis for the feature film *The Last Lullaby*). But where did Quarry's sto
BIG MAN ON CAMPUS Crime fiction readers know Quarry, the ruthless killer-for-hire, from Max Allan Collins' acclaimed novels -- most recently _THE LAST QUARRY_ , which told the story of the assassin's final assignment (and was the basis for the feature film _The Last Lullaby_). But where di
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