Quarry in the Middle: Quarry Mass Market Paperback – April 19, 2011

Collins is one of the most prolific authors of the last several decades. He has written dozens of books, including his Nathan Heller series, his Mallory series, and his Quarry series. He is also well-known for taking over writing the Dick Tracy comic strip, his Road to Perdition series which resulted in a well-received movie starring Paul Newman, and for completing a number of Mickey Spillane's books, including several great Mike Hammer books.Quarry in the Middle is Collins' ninth book in the Quarry series which began with Quarry in 1976, and includes Quarry's List, Quarry's Deal, Quarry's Cut, Quarry's Vote, Quarry's Greatest Hits, The Last Quarry, The First Quarry, Quarry's Ex, and Wrong Quarry. As detailed in the First Quarry, Quarry is a former Vietnam veteran whose real name is never disclosed to the reader. He comes back, finds his fiancé in bed with another guy, finds that guy working under his car and kicks the jack out, survives a murder trial, and is then recruited by a mysterious figure named the Broker to carry out hits and we don't mean hits in baseball.In Quarry in the Middle, Quarry no longer works for the Broker, who is no longer among the living. Rather, Quarry has obtained the Broker's lists of contacts and he follows the hired assassins, staking them out and figuring out who their prey is. Once he is confident in that information, he offers a deal to the targets, he will, for a price, take out their hitmen and find whoever is the responsible party. I guess everyone needs a career doing something.Quarry in the Middle is firmly set in small-town (Haydee's Port) Midwest in the mid-1980's. Collins reinforces that setting in time and place by his descriptions of the cars used at the time, the music playing on the radio, the posters on the walls in the decrepit bars, and the hair and outfits worn by the folks peopling this small waste of a town. The women, for instance, often have frizzed hair and pink tube tops.Quarry follows a man he knows is a mob hitman to a small town with one wreck of a hotel, a run-down main street filled with bars and dives, and a run-down casino by the river. Both the casino and one of the bars on main street are run by guys who are rival and who both have heavy Chicago connections. Quarry is not a secretive a he would like to be as both of the mobbed-up rivals in this town clue into the fact he is not the vetinary drug salesman he pretends to be.Quarry checks into the same motel as the hitman he is following which leads to some amusing scenes as Quarry comes out of the motel pool after doing laps and sees the hitman sitting next to where Quarry left his rolled-up towel with a nine-millimeter wrapped in it.This Quarry book is non-stop action as Quarry rolls into one fight after another and into one bed after another. In this book, Quarry is definitely single and definitely on the make.Collins never lets the reader forget however that all the action is taking place in this small town waste of a town in the 1980's Midwest and that most of the people in this town have nothing but a bleak future ahead of them. His descriptions of the casinos and clubs and the denizens in them are just right on. Collins also takes the reader step by step through a high-stakes poker game.All in all, although this book may be nothing more than another chapter in the Quarry series, it is a fun, worthwhile read, firmly in the hard case crime tradition. Expect to finish the book the same day you start it.

Quarry might just be one beautiful bastard, even if he manages to lose a few teeth along the way. The women certainly don’t seem to mind. Whether he goes for the more experienced ones, or the younger ones who managed to knock themselves on the head with the beauty branch, right before their mouths open wide, he certainly empties himself in a rather judicious fashion. He’s an equal opportunity sexual healer, who pounds Percocet with reckless abandon, and always manages to get his man…or woman.He’s not described as a large man, but he takes up a lot of space, and he’s not afraid to shoot right between the eyes, and stuff the bloodied corpse in the back of his trunk. Like the pages of QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE that somehow manage to contain his presence, he rushes toward the end, even if he gets tripped up along the path of redemption. More than one evil presence fills the pages of this tall tale. Even if the penultimate conclusion ends in a mild whimper, I still managed to root rather hard for the home team, and wield my Louisville Slugger with pride and compassion and mild resentment.The curves on these broads, though, nearly had me on my knees. One day, when I’m probably on my deathbed, sucking turnip juice through my respirator, as pale as a white house, with varicose veins and a twitch in my right and left hand, I’ll tell the nurse, in between gasps of breath, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore.” And then I’ll probably pass out for the next twelve hours, only to snore so hard that I wake myself up.If you don’t mind a few bastards between the pages, a damsel in distress or two who just happens to own more than one pair of sheer panties and maneuvers better than a Hoover, then you’ll feel right at home between this warm blanket. Even if you have to sleep with one eye open and a hard look over your shoulder whenever you maneuver down a dark alleyway. I’d say it’s well worth the tradeoff, and I’ll try not to wait so long to read the next one.Robert DownsAuthor of Falling Immortality: Casey Holden, Private Investigator

I never leave a Max Allen Collins book thinking I got robbed, I'm beginning to think this guy can't write a bad book. I love his style, it's strictly Hard-Boiled stuff, the mode some may refer to as "pulp" and turn up their nose. For those so inclined to dismiss, you have my profound sympathy. Call his books and style what you will, Max Allen Collins never fails to deliver entertainment with a captial E. If you haven't read his Heller series you have a treat in store. Most of these books can be purchased for pennies and you will find it difficult if not impossible to put them down. I've only just begun his Quarry series and here again, I find myself turning electronic page after page long after I should have gone to sleep. Max has apparently had a long career as a successful novelist, screenwriter and playwright. I'm not sure if he's still writing, but I would hope so for fiction's sake. For those who would like to hunker down with a good read that does what fiction should do, and that's entertain first and foremost, with no sermonizing either philosophically, religiously or politically Max Allen Collins is your guy. J B Bergstad - Kindle Author writing as Matt James. [ASIN:B002TSB0UA Screwing the Pooch - New Revised Edition] [ASIN:B00CDAQ4PU Hyde's Corner - Book I - No Man's Land (Hyde's Corner Trilogy)

And it has a surprise ending. What a great read! Hard to put this one down. Lots of action and multiple surprises.

Another solid entry in the quarry series. He never disappoints.

Can not put them down, great quick read. I rarely read the same author all in one hit. Love them

Ein guter Quarry, der weitere Lücken füllt. Leider nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt. Quarry, wie man ihn kennt: knochentrocken und nichts schön redend

You know exactly what you're going to get with Quarry - a chauvinstic, decisive, stripped back narrative that entertains.

Another easy read, entertaining, a good way to spend a few hours.

Great pulp fiction which took me back 50 years to the time I discovered Mickey Spillane. The next in the series will be ordered soon.