Quarry’s Greatest Hits

Introduction by Ed Gorman

I’ve always tried to imagine how the pitch went when Max (Al) Allan Collins called his agent and told him that he’d like to write a series about a guy named Quarry.

Al: Well, see, he’s a killer.

Agent: Ah, yes, an avenger. Like The Executioner. He’s a man on a moral mission.

Al: Well, not exactly. He’s just trying to turn a buck.

Agent: He kills people for money?

Al: Uh-huh.

Agent: People he doesn’t know? Doesn’t have anything against personally?

Al: Uh-huh. A paid assassin.

Agent: But he probably feels pretty bad about it, right? Guilt eating him alive?

Al: No. No guilt. It’s just a job to him.

Agent: So let me get this straight. He kills people for money and doesn’t feel bad about it.

Al: Right.

Agent: And you want to want him to be the lead character in this series?

Al: Right.

Agent: But it’s never been done before.

Al: I know. That’s why it’s going to be so much fun. The Quarry series sold quickly. This was back in the seventies when Vietnam had skewed a whole lot of things in the United States, especially our sense of right and wrong. An ex-Vietnam vet who was a contract killer for various criminal kingpins? Yeah, why not? It was a very nihilistic time.

Quarry never went out of fashion. Not even in the eighties and nineties when some of the worst crimes were being committed on Wall Street. Quarry hung in there, a quirky, dark figure who had an engagingly wry take on how he earned his money. Many editions of his adventures were published worldwide.

Max Collins, of course, went on to write the Nathan Heller series of historical mysteries — one of the most unique and important detective series of this era — as well as the gangster masterpiece, Road To Perdition.

But despite attending parties with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, despite hearing critics suddenly start shining their light on several of his previously neglected books and thus bringing them back into print... despite his sudden fame... Al has never forgotten his hit man.

This is the first collection of Quarry pieces, if you will. You’ll like them for the same reasons that readers have liked them for more than thirty years. They’re a lot of fun, Al is a past master at creating characters and plot twists that stun you, and Quarry was not only the first professional killer to head his own series... he’s still the most indelible.

Quarry’s Midwest isn’t any you’ll find in the travel books. It’s a noir hell well worthy of Spillane, Ellroy, and Tarantino.