Quarry’s Return (expected publication Nov. 5, 2024) is Collins’ latest foray into the ever-growing legend of the man known as Quarry. Think about that classic rock concert you went to last year and the band coming out for an encore, then coming out for another encore, and then perhaps (after most have left the stadium heading for the parking and traffic) the final penultimate encore. Well, that’s what we get with the Quarry series, encore after encore, which is good because the series is always tremendous fun to read.
Quarry’s Return has a still trim Quarry (who swims every day whether on a job or in the lakeside resort he runs) in his Seventies and who has discovered he has a forty-year-old daughter, courtesy of the playboy bunny he once had a wonderful fling with, and who writes true crime stories, some of which are based on Quarry himself. With that introduction to the book, you know if you are a long-time fan of the series that you will get a few tidbits to take you down memory lane and Quarry’s checkered past, including the basic Quarry story, which is that he got send by Uncle Sugar to Vietnam, only to return to find his dear wife had not waited for him. He kicked a jack out from under the new boyfriend’s car, managed not to get convicted of murder, and went to work for the Broker as a hitman, often part of a two-man team. Later, he took out the Broker and went to work ferreting out who was ordering hits and turning that around on the guys who were making the orders.
This time it is personal as Quarry himself is apparently targeted and his daughter has vanished. With Lu (previously of Quarry’s Deal), a sloe-eyed blonde beauty who is Quarry’s match in skills, you get a pair tag-teaming their way across the novel. The writing is crisp. The story is fast-paced and includes all the requisite action even right from the beginning and shows us fans that Quarry, even a geriatric Quarry, can still hold his own. There are points where Quarry plays at being more of a private eye ferreting out clues than just an action hero. Nevertheless, this one is just a whole lot of fun to read and an invitation to revisit all the previous sixteen Quarry novels.
This reviewer received an advance reader’s copy from the publisher for purposes of review.
Pulp, Crime, & Mystery Books 