Review by Booklist Review
Since Collins revived his Quarry series in 2006, the unrepentant hitman has jumped back and forth in time, recounting adventures taking place at various points from the seventies onward. Now, finally, we are treated to a Quarry novel happening in real time. Nearing 70, Quarry has been out of the killing game for years, living alone in Minnesota, when he receives a visit from Susan Breedlove, the author of a best-selling true-crime book about an unnamed hitman who is obviously based on Quarry. Among her sources, we learn, were the paperback novels written by Quarry himself in retirement (this is all very meta). Still pondering what to do about Susan, who wants to write a sequel, Quarry is visited by two hitmen, the hunter becoming the hunted. But who hired the hitters? After Quarry discovers a surprising connection with Susan, the pair hit the road, tracking down suspects from Quarry's past. This outing will prove most enjoyable for those who know Quarry's tangled backstory, but any fan of paperback-spinner noir, with plenty of blood spatter seasoned with a little interpersonal complexity, will have no trouble getting acclimated.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
MWA Grand Master Collins's fine, action-packed 16th Quarry novel (after 2019's Killing Quarry) brings the series to a fitting close. In 1983, Quarry, a former hit man who now goes after hit men, returns to the seedy club on Mississippi's Biloxi Strip where, 10 years earlier, he murdered the owners. Luann, his humorless former sweetheart who helped in the killings, has since taken over running the club. Quarry has been following a hit man whose target appears to be Luann. His subsequent execution of the gangster behind the hit, Alex Brunner, leads to unforeseen complications. While raiding Brunner's safe, he comes across two computer disks containing evidence of bribery incriminating Dixie Mafia biggies, cops, and politicians--evidence of local corruption that could put dozens of people in jail. He leaves town. Not until 2021, when a bestselling true-crime author tracks down the 69-year-old Quarry in the Midwest, does he discover what became of Luann and the floppy disks. Intriguing backstories, crafty revelatory connections, tongue-in-cheek humor, and blistering present-day battles make this entry sizzle. Noir fans will be sorry to see the last of Quarry. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In yet another final installment of his pulpy franchise, retired hit man John Quarry meets his daughter, who turns out to be a chip off the old block. After a prologue in 1983 Biloxi in which Quarry dispatches the team of killers who've targeted his former lover Luann Lloyd, a former pole dancer who manages her own club, the story leaps to the present, a most unfamiliar time frame for the hero, who's now pushing 70. Tracked down by true-crime author Susan Breedlove, who, like him, has based several of her books on his exploits, he's reluctant to revisit the past--"I hadn't killed anybody in fifteen, sixteen years!" he protests--until he figures out that she's his daughter, come to warn him that yet another contract has been taken out on his life. The leading suspects she's identified after a careful study of his adventures are Montgomery Climer, the Memphis impresario who revitalized the struggling Climax empire by putting a blue-collar, right-wing spin on the magazine and its clubs; Jeffrey Kinman, who inherited control of the Quad Cities' Concort Inn from his late uncle, a partner of the Broker, the former liaison Quarry killed; and Theodore Brunner, whose brother Alex ended up in the trunk of one of Quarry's many cars after he took out that 1983 contract on Luann. Since Quarry is Quarry, he winnows the field of suspects by arming himself and confronting each of them face to face, unearthing yet another unexpected offspring (not his this time) along the way. A coda, "Quarry's History," explains how this unlikely sequel came to be and acknowledges that more may well follow. Easy listening for readers whose preferred soundtrack is muffled gunfire. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
