Book Review: QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

QUARRY by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime, October 2015) Originally published as THE BROKER in 1976. Paperback, 272 pages. 

Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . 

The assignment was simple: stake out the man's home and kill him. Easy work for a professional like Quarry. But when things go horribly wrong, Quarry finds himself with a new mission: learn who hired him, and make the bastard pay.

The longest-running series from Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition, and the first ever to feature a hitman as the main character, the Quarry novels tell the story of a paid assassin with a rebellious streak and an unlikely taste for justice. Once a Marine sniper, Quarry found a new home stateside with a group of contract killers. But some men aren't made for taking orders - and when Quarry strikes off on his own, god help the man on the other side of his nine-millimeter...

My Five-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     A quick read, and very entertaining. It also leaves the reader with something to think about - a society getting more and more self-centered, unemotional, and cruel. Yeah, that's pretty extreme - but that's how it left me. In spite of that, Collins creates a sympathetic character in Quarry. That's a neat trick to pull off. 

Even more remarkable is that this was originally written in 1976. This could even be considered a ground-breaking novel for the crime genre, but I won't go that far. Written in the classic style of hard-boiled detective fiction, QUARRY differs in that the main character is not a private detective. He's a contracted hitman, a freelancer (although he was getting the majority of his work through The Broker.)

If I had read any of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels (on my to-be-read list) I would probably be comparing Collins to Spillane. I'm just guessing that they are similar, based on some critiques of Spillane that I have read. 

This isn't quite on the same level as the brilliant Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe novels, but it does bear comparison. Both Chandler and Collins write about the excesses of high society, the moral depravity of the elite who feel themselves entitled. Except this isn't Los Angeles, it's a small fictional Midwestern town (based on where Collins grew up). 

Here's an example of passages that I really liked, and also how I suspect Spillane writes:

Anybody I ever hit was set to go anyway. I saw to it that it happened clean and fast. It was something like working in a butcher shop, only my job pays better, the hours are shorter and there isn't the mess.

And, this one that reminds me of Chandler:

Outside the thunder rumbled, crackled. She joined me at the window and looked out. The gray streaking rain reflected on her pink flesh, as though someone were projecting a film and using her as a screen.