Max Allan Collins - The First Quarry (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))

Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st century Mickey Spillane and...will please any fan of old-school, hardboiled crime fiction.

This Week

No one can twist you through a maze with as much intensity and suspense as Max Allan Collins.

Clive Cussler

Collins never misses a beat...All the stand-up pleasures of dime-store pulp with a beguiling level of complexity.

Booklist

Collins has an outwardly artless style that conceals a great deal of art.

New York Times Book Review

A suspenseful, wild nights ride [from] one of the finest writers of crime fiction that the U.S. has produced.

Book Reporter

This book is about as perfect a page turner as youll find.

Library Journal

Bristling with suspense and sexuality, this book is a welcome addition to the Hard Crime Case library.

Publishers Weekly

A total delight...fast, surprising, and well-told.

Deadly Pleasures

Strong and compelling reading.

Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine

Max Allan Collins [is] like no other writer.

Andrew Vachss

Collins breaks out a really good one, knocking over the hard-boiled competition (Parker and Leonard for sure, maybe even Puzo) with a one-two punch: a feisty storyline told bittersweet and wry...nice and taut...the book is unputdownable. Never done better.

Kirkus Reviews

Rippling with brutal violence and surprisingly sexuality...I savored every turn.

Bookgasm

Masterful.

Jeffrey Deaver

Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters...a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending. A consummate thriller from one of the new masters of the genre.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

For fans of the hardboiled crime novel...this is powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Entertaining...full of colorful characters...a stirring conclusion.

Detroit Free Press

Collins makes it sound as though it really happened.

New York Daily News

An exceptional storyteller.

San Diego Union Tribune

A gift for intricate plotting and cinematically effective action scenes.

Jon L. Breen, Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers

Nobody does it better than Max Allan Collins.

John Lutz

She turned around and the nine millimeter was huge in her orange-nailed hand. Her expression was a little crazy.

She said, You know I could just kill the son of a bitch.

Not a good idea. Give me that.

Or maybe you could. Would you kill him for me? She seemed a little drunk. Maybe that hadnt been her first beer.

No. Thats not a toy.

She handed it to me, with a babyish pout. I took the weapon and held it in both hands; Id never felt the metal so cold.

She plopped down next to me again. One of us should kill that miserable prick.

Yeah, well, not tonight.

Then she got up, suddenly, and ran to the bathroom. When she came back, she positioned herself in front of me.

How old are you? she asked.

I told her.

I was in junior high when you were born, she said.

She took off her sweater, yanked it over her head with magnificent casualness. She stared down at me; so did the bullet bra.

Her hands went behind her to undo the bra. I looked away, the gun still in my hands. This was wrong. I could get in ten kinds of trouble. A hundred. She was a beautiful, sad, troubled woman and she was taking her bra off and I was about to get fucked several ways, not all of them good...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

ROBBIES WIFE by Russell Hill

THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

ZERO COOL by John Lange

SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB by Robert Bloch

THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin

SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake

NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher

BABY MOLL by John Farris

THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

by Max Allan Collins

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-048)

First Hard Case Crime edition: October 2008

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

Copyright 2008 by Max Allan Collins

Cover painting copyright 2008 by Ken Laager

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-364-9

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-642-8

Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name Hard Case Crime and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

To Quarrys old pal, Gary Meyers

Fearjealousymoneyrevengeand protecting someone you love.

PLAYWRIGHT FREDERICK KNOTT, LISTING MURDER MOTIVES

Dial M for Murder

DECEMBER 1970

The night after Christmas and all through the house, it was colder than fuck.

The home was new, brand-new, with the various smells of paint, plastic and disinfectant you might expect. Even the carpet I was sitting on, next to a window onto the quiet street, had a chemical odor. No Christmas decorations lingered here, because the split-level four-bedroom affair was as empty as the boxes littering curbsides across America.

And this was America, all rightIowa City, Iowa, the heartland, the street out front not really a street at all, but a former county road recently renamed Country Vista, which was ironic because the builders whod invaded this stretch of farmland-bordered real estate had nothing so much in mind as blotting out a country vista.

Two houses sat on corners on either side of a brand-new lane that made a T with Country Vista, and I sat in one of those houses, the beige split-level on the left as you faced the renamed county road. This new lane had no name yet, just as its dozen split-levels (so far) had no inhabitants; the waiting dwellings squatted on sloping future lawnssnow-pocked dirt right nowwith room for an entire development to develop beyond.