QUARRY’S RETURN
By Max Allan Collins
Hard Case Crime
213 pgs.
One must wonder at the twists and turns of fate when a writer of the baby-boomer generation (post-World War II for you youngsters) is still writing about a hired gun well into his seventies. That’s Quarry, one of three series Collins whipped up a long…long…long time ago. That it is still around, never mind getting better like aged bourbon, is no small literary feat. Our best guess as to why: two things. One, Collins is such a damn good writer, and two, his loyal readers know it and aren’t going anywhere.
In his last novel featuring his Quarry tale, Collins introduced his Vietnam veteran protagonist to the adult daughter he’d never known. After an awkward start, filial emotions rose to the surface when they were forced to save each other’s lives from some very bad people. In this follow-up tale, Quarry learns that Susan, his crime-writer daughter, has disappeared while researching a serial killer. This he learns from an old lover-colleague, a beautiful Japanese gal named Lu, his equal in death-dealing. The two of them make Bonnie and Clyde look like Hansel and Gretel.
It becomes obvious that Susan has run afoul of the very fiend behind the so-called Cheerleader Murders she is investigating. Unless Quarry and Lu can find her quickly, Susan will become the killer’s fourth victim. Collins weaves a fast-paced tale as his wonderfully mature couple question and shoot their way through a twisted puzzle, each aware that the stamina and zeal of their youth exist only in melancholy backward glances.
“Quarry’s Return” continues the quality of this series, offering up both the drama and action we’ve come to expect from a master storyteller now at the height of his craft. Oh, if only more writers weren’t afraid of growing old.
