{"id":156,"date":"2015-01-24T22:11:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T04:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/?p=156"},"modified":"2015-01-24T22:11:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T04:11:13","slug":"a-review-of-quarrys-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/a-review-of-quarrys-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review of Quarry’s Choice<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Quarry's<\/a>Quarry’s Choice<\/em><\/a>
\nMax Allan Collins<\/a>
\nHard Case Crime<\/a>
\nPaperback, 248 p., $9.99 US, $11.99 Can L<\/em>7.99 UK
\nebook $7.99<\/p>\n

Max Allan Collins has been working in the crime and mystery fields for decades now, and one of his most popular and enduring characters is the hitman Quarry. Quarry has had something of a renaissance in recent years, with Hard Case publishing a number of new novels. The previous volume, The Wrong Quarry<\/em><\/a>, is sitting in my TBR pile.<\/p>\n

In the latest installment, Collins gives us an episode from early in Quarry’s career.\u00a0 He’s recently returned from Viet Nam and hasn’t been in the contract killing business long.\u00a0 When an associate of his boss, known as The Broker, is shot at, Quarry is sent to Biloxi to take out the man who ordered the hit.<\/p>\n

He’s going in under cover, pretending to be a new hire.\u00a0 The second in command of a gambling and prostitution ring is concerned that his boss is getting too ambitious and is endangering them all.\u00a0 Since the boss ordered the hit on The Broker, the number two guy has arranged for Quarry to join the team, so to speak.<\/p>\n

Of course things aren’t nearly that simple.\u00a0 The first complication is the girl Quarry is given to keep him company.\u00a0 Luann is a stripper and hooker who was sold into the business by her mother when she was a young teen.\u00a0 Quarry lets Luann get close to him, and that’s his first mistake.<\/p>\n

The astute reader will see where Quarry makes more than one mistake.\u00a0 Of course, just because the choices he makes are mistakes, that doesn’t mean they are the wrong choices.\u00a0 Just not the best for a professional killer to make.<\/p>\n

Collins establishes the period well.\u00a0 He does this in two ways.\u00a0 First, there’s the music.\u00a0 My understanding is that Collins is a musician himself, and the songs that Quarry hears playing in the background are very much of the era.<\/p>\n

The second way that Collins establishes the period is in some detailed descriptions of what his characters are wearing.\u00a0 I’m just old enough to remember that, yes, people really did dress like this back in the 70s.<\/p>\n

Collins shows the dark side of strip joints and prostitution.\u00a0 Luann tells him some things that have been done to her that are pretty rough.\u00a0 Collins doesn’t shy away from graphic content, especially sex and language in this one.\u00a0 The violence is almost tame by comparison.\u00a0 If this isn’t your cup of tea, you might want to keep this in mind before starting Quarry’s Choice<\/em>.\u00a0 Collins is one of the few authors I’ll read that have this level of graphic content.<\/p>\n

I met Mr. Collins once, when Bouchercon was in Austin.\u00a0 This was back in 2002.\u00a0 (Has it been that long? Now I’m depressed.)\u00a0 I liked him immediately.\u00a0 He seemed to be having more fun than any three people in the room combined, and everyone was having a good time.\u00a0 My impression of him, and I mean no insult at all by this, was that he was a giant kid who had figured out how to make a living doing something he loved.\u00a0 We should all be so lucky.\u00a0 His enjoyment of being there and meeting his fans was palpable.\u00a0 I had read a few of his books before going, but he made a fan of me that day by how well he treated when I asked for his signature.\u00a0 I’ve been reading his work ever since.<\/p>\n

Quarry’s Choice<\/em> may not be for everyone.\u00a0 But if you’re up for it, it’s a gripping story with all the twists and turns you would expect from a Quarry novel.\u00a0 A solid addition to the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quarry’s Choice Max Allan Collins Hard Case Crime Paperback, 248 p., $9.99 US, $11.99 Can L7.99 UK ebook $7.99 Max Allan Collins has been working in the crime and mystery fields for decades now, and one of his most popular and enduring characters is the hitman Quarry. Quarry has had something of a renaissance in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49],"tags":[97,50,51],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hard-case-crime","tag-hard-case-crime","tag-max-allan-collins","tag-quarry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P58L-2w","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}