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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780843959659
ISBN number: 0843959657
Label: Hard Crime Case
Manufacturer: Hard Crime Case
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 204
Printing Date: September 30, 2008
Publishing house: Hard Crime Case
Sale Popularity Level: 44555
Studio: Hard Crime Case
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Rated by buyers 
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the author is quite crude and not shy about showering us with plenty of his crudeness. The story suffers for it. To compare him with John MacDonald? Unbelievably ignorant. Glad I got it from the library instead of buying it. I will avoid this writer although I do enjoy the Hardcase Crime Series. Being 'Pulp' does not apologize for Mr. Collins.
Rated by buyers 
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In my opinion, the lowest form of fiction writing is the novelization, followed by the "shared world" genre (e.g., Star Trek novels). For the writer, it is principally a mercenary act, one motivated by the easy sales associated with a movie or TV series and requiring a minimal amount of creativity; after all, the characters and setting are already provided, if not the plot itself. For the reader, no real imagination is required: why imagine what a character looks or sounds like when you already have one given to you?
The reason for this minor rant is Max Allan Collins, who has made a living off such books. Normally, this would give me a negative view of the writer (though many decent authors have done this type of writing), but he has also written his own works as well. One such series features the assassin Quarry. I'd never read any of the Quarry books before, but the most recent one was still a good place to start: The First Quarry deals with the hitman's very first paid job.
Quarry fits into the same mold of characters that is most notably depicted by Donald Westlake/Richard Stark's Parker: the cool professional who has little in the way of emotions or conscience. Quarry is not quite the stoic that Parker is, but he comes close. A sniper just returning from Vietnam (the story takes place in December 1970), Quarry has been hired to kill a professor. It's his very first job working for the mysterious middleman known as The Broker, who provides a level of insulation between client and killer.
What should be an easy enough task is complicated by a second task that's required: the professor is working on a manuscript that must be destroyed. And though Quarry would like to avoid collateral damage, the professor is usually in the company of a shapely coed. It's just after Christmas, and in the small college town that the professor works, there are so few people that Quarry will have encounters with both the professor and people associated with him. All of which makes an easy job all the tougher.
Like most of the novels in the Hard Case Crime series of books, this novel is short and tersely written, reminiscent of the paperback mysteries of the 1950s and 1960s, the type of novels that authors like Lawrence Block, John MacDonald and Donald Westlake got their starts with. I typically enjoy that lean style of writing (I'm a fan of all those authors), and Collins does a first-rate job with this book. So the lesson is: even if the author writes potboiler novelizations, that doesn't mean he can't write other, better books as well. It may not always be the case, but with Collins, it is.
Rated by buyers -
Crime and suspense novelist Max Allan Collins has been writing about a professional hitman codenamed Quarry for forty years. I picked up the very 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 very 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 very 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.
I love Collins's first-person narrative in the novel. Quarry is a stone killer even at the outset of his career, but he's packing a lot more one-liners and biting sarcasm this time out. I found myself chuckling and laughing out loud as Collins's showed Quarry responding to an unexpected situation/threat or unleashing a poignant piece of reflection on people and society. I could tell Collins was just having a blast while writing this novel.
And he had fun making Quarry's life difficult, which made the read even more entertaining for me. Every time Quarry thinks he's got a lock on the hit and has a time to take advantage of, a new twist occurs (or a man steps into the room with a pistol - and old noir standby that Raymond Chandler often espoused to beginning writers). I enjoyed watching Quarry scramble like a broken field runner as he had to deal with other women, a crooked private eye looking to make money on a blackmail scheme, a pair of African-American crime hitters, and the Mafia.
The novel is a short read and I consumed it in a couple sittings. The pacing and dialogue just make it impossible to put down. And I was intrigued at each new wrinkle Collins added, kept wondering how Quarry was going to smooth out each one. I wasn't disappointed. Quarry keeps working each problem he has or discovers, and he keeps up the patter to the reader, breaking down that fourth wall till readers will feel they're standing in Quarry's shadow.
THE FIRST QUARRY is one of the best books I've read all year. Short and tight, elegantly paced and plotted, the novel blew me away. I can only hope that since the series has been bookended, that just maybe Collins will dip back into Quarry's life at some point and pull out a few more contracts. THE MIDDLE QUARRY, anyone?
Rated by buyers -
Late last year, I discovered the publisher, HARD CASE CRIME, and I quickly became addicted to their books--a mix of long lost classic pulp novels mixed in with some new titles. Early this year, I decided to take the plunge and joined the Hard Case Crime Book Club. Every month, I receive a new title, and with the exception of one book, I've never been disappointed. I love these gritty, pulp novels. Sometimes I feel like picking up a classic, and sometimes I need the distraction of Hard Case Crime.
Although The First Quarry is the seventh novel in the Quarry series by Max Allan Collins, this latest book (published 9/08) presents the story of how Quarry, a killer-for-hire, began his violent career. This was my very first Quarry novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Set in 1970, the book begins with hitman Quarry on his very first job, stuck in a newly built and unoccupied house in Iowa City conducting a stakeout of a libidinous professor. Although it's the Christmas break, the Professor is still meeting students at his home, but the Professor isn't driven by altruism. Instead, as Quarry continues his stakeout, it becomes glaringly obvious that egotistical Professor K.J. Byron entertains a constant stream of beautiful young graduate students who pass through his bedroom. Quarry, frozen, bored and eating whatever junk food he can buy at the local convenience store, maintains surveillance of Byron's house, waiting for an opportune moment to make his hit.
From the start, the situation becomes increasingly more complicated. Byron's female students rotate in and out, and there's also a jealous wife somewhere in the background. But things become even murkier when Quarry discovers that he's not the only man staking out Byron's house. It seems that several interested parties are watching Byron, and there's no shortage of people who would like to send the professor on a one-way trip to the morgue. The fact that Byron is also indulging in a steamy dalliance with Annette Girard, the daughter of brutal Chicago mob boss, Lou Girardelli complicates matters even further, and it's not long before the bodies start piling up.
This terrific crime novel grabbed me from page one. Quarry, and that's a fake name by the way, is a fascinating character. The novel has an easy, readable, almost affable style, which is in complete contrast to the action and the inevitable violence. Reading the novel, I so enjoyed Quarry's pithy world-view that I almost forgot his contract obligations. While Quarry is a stone-cold killer, the novel spends some time explaining his code of ethics and the moral justifications he applies to his career in death. Shaped by Vietnam, Quarry sees no difference in working for the army and working as a hitman. While Quarry accepts that his targets are "obituaries waiting to be written" the fact that the professor is a slimeball, just makes his job a little more pleasurable.
Given the subject matter of the book, it may seem odd that the plot is laced with a great deal of humor. While the humour is in contrast to the subject matter, the two elements are not jarring, and this is thanks to the talent of the author who manages to create, very successfully, a hitman with a great sense of humor--a man we can't help liking in spite of his profession. It's no small feat to pull off the juxtaposition of cynical murder and humor, but Max Alan Collins manages it and manages it to perfection. Finally, the novel manages to purvey the perfect flavor of the 70s and that includes being decidedly un-PC.
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