The first Quarry

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 ne'er-do-well Quarry found something he was good at killing 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. Quarry's 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 pro's pro.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2008 Booklist

Best-selling Iowa-based author Collins returns to assassin Quarry's past--his first job, to kill a professor who's guilty of more than affairs with his students. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.