Review by Booklist Review
Collins' long-running Quarry series tracking the adventures of a character who kills people, either as a hit man or as a contractor hiring out his services to the targets of other hit men continues to jump around chronologically: this one is a sequel to Quarry's Deal (originally published as The Dealer in 1976), and, in the series' complex narrative arc, it finds Quarry semiretired near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, taking only the occasional gig dispatching other hit men, whose names appear on a much-coveted list that belonged to Quarry's former handler. Fine, until it turns out that the target of the hit man Quarry is tracking is, well, Quarry himself. That little problem gets sorted when another ""colleague,"" the fetching Lu, turns up in the nick of time. So begins a thoroughly entertaining pas de deux, evoking Richard Condon's classic Prizzi's Honor (1982), in which Quarry and Lu come together as lovers and co-conspirators, despite neither one being sure who will try to kill the other first. The seventies backdrop, complete with cavorting and bloodletting at a former Playboy resort, only adds to the time-capsule ambience of this pulpy pleasure trip.--Bill Ott Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
MWA Grand Master Collins's irresistible 15th Quarry novel (after 2017's Quarry's Climax) finds the professional assassin with a target on his own back. But why? Quarry is operating Wilma's Welcome Inn in Geneva, Wis., as his "straight" occupation. But once he narrowly escapes an attempt on his life, Quarry joins forces with another killer-for-hire, the beautiful Lu, whom he worked with 10 years earlier. It's Lu's presence, and the dash of romance she brings, that really energizes this entry. Every bit Quarry's equal with a gun and a bit beyond him in the intellect department, Lu saves his bacon more than once. Collins maintains a tension between the two that's resolved only on the final page. One of the book's great pleasures is the humorless Quarry's deadpan narration, whether he's describing a pragmatic sexual encounter or exactly how a carefully planned hit can suddenly go off the rails. Newcomers and established fans alike will be happily drawn into Quarry's cold-blooded criminal world. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Professional killer Quarry's 1980s midlife career change to selling potential targets the ultimate protection from the people who've marked them for death comes a cropper in a way that would be unusual for anyone but him.Double-crossed by his longtime handler, the Broker, Quarry (Quarry's Climax, 2017, etc.) has executed him and taken the extensive list of contract killers whose services he handles. Intent on monetizing the list, which is definitely worth serious coin, but unwilling to take the Broker's place as just another middleman, he comes up with the idea of choosing random names from the list, stalking them until he figures out whom they've staked out themselves, and then telling the marks they've been targeted and offering to take out their killers for a price. This new regimen works fine, at least according to the standards of murder for hire, until Quarry gets on the scent of Bruce Simmons, a hit man whose target is Quarry himself. A face-off between the two businessmen ends with Simmons predictably dead, shot by Lu, his partner in crime, who years ago had a brief fling with Quarry but hasn't seen him since. After Quarry's disposed of the body, showered to get rid of the blood and brains, he has sex with the beauteous Lu, who reveals that her own handler, the Envoy, is the client who hired her and Simmons to kill Quarry. Why would someone target an inoffensive hit man who's now switched to killing only his own kind, along with the inevitable collateral damage? The answer awaits at a very, very exclusive investment conference at the Lake Geneva Golf and Ski Resort, which just happens to be run by Quarry's poker buddy Dan Clarkan event at which discussions of high finance will take a back seat to sound and fury.Rousing period pulp for those who miss the '80s or the glory days of men's magazines a generation earlier. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
