Quarry's Climax: Quarry

by Max Allan Collins

Overview

From the award-winning author of ROAD TO PERDITION, the new QUARRY novel continues the deadly story of the assassin who stars in the acclaimed Cinemax original series


Memphis, 1975. “Raunchy” doesn’t begin to describe Max Climer’s magazine, Climax, or his all-hours strip club, or his planned video empire. And evangelists, feminists, and local watchdog groups all want him out of business. But someone wants more than that, and has hired a killer to end Max’s career permanently. Only another hit man – the ruthless professional known as Quarry, star of the acclaimed series on Cinemax – can keep Climer from becoming a casualty in the Sexual Revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785651816
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Series:	Quarry Series , #14
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	949,818
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Max Allan Collins is the author of Road to Perdition, the acclaimed graphic novel that inspired the movie, and of the multiple-award-winning Nathan Heller series of historical hardboiled mysteries. Max Allan Collins is one of most prolific and popular authors working in the field today. He was chosen as a 2017 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.  He is also the literary executor of Mickey Spillane.

Editorial Reviews

08/21/2017
Set in 1975, MWA Grand Master Collins’s taut 14th Quarry novel (after 2016’s Quarry in the Black) presents a peculiar challenge for the professional hit man. Instead of simply killing his target, Quarry is tasked by his employer, the Broker, with protecting Max Climer, the Memphis-based publisher of a raunchy skin magazine called Climax, from a hit that has been assigned to parties unknown—and then eliminating the rival hit men. Quarry travels from his home in Paradise Lake, Wis., to Memphis, where he joins forces with his longtime partner, Boyd, a proficient assassin, and the two plunge into the city’s underworld in search of those out to get Climer. One of the book’s pleasures is watching the cold-blooded Quarry make tactical decisions with utter logic. Fun, too, is Quarry’s raffish way with the women he meets at every turn, leading to several colorful (and explicit) assignations. Numerous ’70s pop culture references leaven the criminal proceedings in this deft exercise in the business of violence. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Collins treats us to a wonderfully vivid look at the pornography industry in its heyday. From publishers to centerfolds to strippers to feminist protesters, he cuts through the stereotypes with quick bits of subtle characterization (but, please, don’t say you read a book with Climax in the title only for the characters)." - Booklist

"Quintessential Collins and Quarry, a glorious mix of well-written action, humor, and sudden, unexpected, brutality." - Mystery Scene

I’ve written about the Quarry books several times… it remains my favorite Collins series. I think one of the reasons I enjoy these books so much is because it melds the headlong pulpy momentum of Mickey Spillane with the gleefully transgressive sensibility of seventies trash paperback series like The Executioner or The Liquidator. But, y’know, better...Collins can plot a mystery; everything develops naturally and the puzzle is always taxing without ever feeling contrived....I always enjoy seeing it done well and Collins does it better than most. I recommend all the Quarry books and you can read them in most any order, but I enjoyed this one more than any of them since The Wrong Quarry.   —AtomicJunkShop

"fast paced and fun" - San Francisco Book Review & Seattle Book Reivew

From the Publisher

2017-08-08
A 1970s hit man who starred in last year's Cinemax series gets his strangest assignment to date: to prevent an unknown rival contractor from killing his target.Jack Quarry—not his real name—can hardly believe his ears when the Broker, who sends a good deal of work his way, tells him that he not only turned down a contract to have Memphis porn king Max Climer killed, but that he wants to make sure that whoever got the contract fails. Climer, whose operations have grown from the Climax Club to Climax, the magazine that's giving Playboy and Hustler runs for their money, is just too big a money-spinner for the Broker to lose. That means somebody else has to lose: first whoever's been hired to kill Max, then whoever did the hiring. Who might want Max dead? Pretty much everybody, says the Broker. But Quarry (Quarry in the Black, 2016, etc.) meets precious few candidates for the honor, because this isn't that kind of story. Arriving in Memphis with his gay partner, Boyd, whose partnership, he insists, is purely professional, Quarry instantly makes his way to Max's office in order to show him how lax his security is. Max, hearing his story, hires him ostensibly as a security consultant, leaving Quarry free to prowl around the Climax Club, meeting Vernon, Max's cousin and sidekick; Vernon's daughter, Cordelia Colman, who demonstrates her rebellious streak by joining local protests against Climax Enterprises, which sounds absolutely worthy of them; and coupling with every stripper and publisher's niece he can find, till he protests, "How much sex did these people think I could stand?" Plenty of fatalities, but you won't mourn them, since they're all a lot more forgettable than the vintage '70s soundtrack that seems to be pounding away in every room in Memphis.

Kirkus Reviews