Quarry’s
Climax, the fourteenth title in Max Allan Collins’ revitalized
Quarry series, is set in the Highland Strip area of Memphis in the autumn of 1975.
The Memphis setting is a “hat tip” to the Cinemax
television series based on the novels, which relocated Quarry from his
literary Midwest roots to the birthplace of the blues. Quarry, a contract
killer, is given the unusual assignment of stopping a hit on Max Climer. Climer
is a strip club owner that expanded his business to publish the very adult
and very raunchy Climax Magazine, and
someone wants him very dead.
Quarry’s business agent, The Broker, is an investor in Climer’s
enterprises and he wants Quarry to thwart the hit, and then determine who ordered
it. The list of potential suspects is long. Climer is a target of women’s
rights groups, religious groups, and business rivals. The Broker sends Quarry
undercover as a security consultant, which gives him free access to Climer’s
offices and the strip joint below, The
Climax Club. The music is blaring, the girls are willing, and Quarry is his
cool, composed self.
Quarry’s
Climax is a smoothly entertaining tale with sex—Quarry attracts
strippers like johns to hookers—violence, and a road map of mid-1970s music. The
linear story is told with a stripped-down style, almost like a beer bar chat
between reader and Quarry, and plotted with enough twists to keep the pages
turning. But it is Quarry, his self-deprecating coolness, dry humor and 1970s
social commentary (with a tour guide quality), that makes this one worth
reading.
I love the Quarry books. I sometimes chuckle when reading them. One night, my wife asked, "What's so funny?" I replied, "Quarry just set this guy's pomade on fire." Wife: "You're so dark sometimes." I wish the Quarry series had kept some of the same humor and sensibility. Thanks for the review. It's the only Quarry book I haven't read and I was putting it off, but I think I'm moving it to the top of the stack now.
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