QUICK SHOTS: Quarry #2: The Broker's Wife by Max Allan Collins

I've long been a fan of Max Allan Collins work. A couple of his novelizations were some of the first "grown-up" books I read when I made the switch from Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes to the harder stuff. I read quite a few Nathan Heller's in my teenage years and read through some of his comic book work but Nolan and especially Quarry eluded me for a long time. First off, I think I just never ran into them at the used books stores I used to haunt. I picked them up when I saw them, but they were all out of order. And I knew I'd like them, so I wanted to read them through the right way. 

When I did get my hands on the first Quarry, I read it quick and guess what? I liked it a lot then the series sorta became one of the ones that I decided to "savor" waiting for the right time when I needed a sure-fire treat. Since I'm still getting over the reading slump I was in that I talked about in the last review I wanted some sure-fire hits. And I don't think I'll be waiting too long to tackle any more of them.

The Broker's Wife has Quarry, a mid-western hitman who is in quasi-hiding after being around when his boss, The Broker got dead. He's mostly just bored, so when two hired killers come and try to take him out, he's relived to be back in the fray. Along the way he tackles with more killers, shady lawyers and, obviously, the titular Broker's Wife. This is a clean book man; everything works and isn't showy about it. Max's style is sparse and wryly funny. The twists are laid out before and waiting for you to remember about when he lets you in on the REST of the story. Never fails to make you smile. 

Quarry himself is a lot fun too. He's a tough guy, sure, a 'Nam vet who has no qualms about murdering people for money, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have a sense of humor. The humor element is a little stronger here and I think it grows a little more as the series goes on. All-in-all, you just sorta like Quarry, he seems like a good guy to have a soda pop with, as long as you don't cross him.

So, The Broker's Wife (also published as Quarry's List) is a fun time, halfway through I paused my reading and watched The Last Lullaby, a feature film based on the Quarry short story A Matter of Principle. The movie was written by Max and stars Tom Sizemore as Price (Quarry) who does a pretty good job, his Quarry isn't quite as relatable/funny but its solid casting. The movie is an indie joint so adjust your expectations. It's a sturdy adaptation with some flair and really nice acting by Tom and Sasha Alexander. It also seems to take a little from the ending of The Broker's Wife, so I could sorta see where this book was going after a bit. Didn't affect the enjoyment any though. 

So, this one's got like the easiest and highest recommendation. All the Quarry books are easy to get too with Hard Case Crime republishing and publishing the new adventures of Quarry, which isn't always the norm in the books I review here. So, you got no excuse not to pick one or all of them up. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!

QUICK SHOTS: Hardman #1: Atlanta Deathwatch by Ralph Dennis

 

I've been in a reading slump, nothing to worry about it happens time to time. I start a new book, and it won't grab me. Maybe it's the books' fault, maybe it's my fault. But I had to get it squared away. I'm a read after all. So, I turned to my old buddy Jim Hardman and his old buddy Hump. 

Right out of his college days, my buddy and me ended up in Jacksonville Florida. I was still drifting in and out of colleges back then about to take up a criminal justice degree that would later turn out to be fairly useless. Well, expect maybe as a crime writer. Anyway, he wanted to go down to Florida for some sort of job fair and had a free ticket. I soaked up free booze and food, rode a monorail like that one in that Simpsons episode, hit the bookstores and loafed.

I had heard of the Hardman books before that from my lurking around the Thrilling Detective website. They sounded up my alley. I was on the lookout for something to bring up the James Crumley feeling that Joe R. Lansdale feeling. Something low-down and mean. That cynical 70s-thing that so many try to replicate but came easy back in the day. I hadn't really dipped my toe into the Men's Adventure world at the time, so the numbers on the covers worried me a bit. But I knew I liked private eyes and action and, hell, that's what it promised on the cover.

It was also before I really bought books online. I remember thinking spending four bucks on a book with free shipping sounded like a ripoff. the young me would certainly look cross at me for how much I've spent on online book purchases now. So, my purchase pool was small, and I never came across a Hardman book. But it turns out this bookstore was a good one and it had a whole stack of them, for something like two bucks a piece. What a score. 

After humping back to my hotel room with a bag of books and a few quarts of beer I read Atlanta Deathwatch while my buddy sat in seminar and my mind was blown. Ralph Dennis's work was something special. It was different, hard-boiled as hell but Jim Hardman himself wasn't a cartoon character. He lived and breathed, (and drank) he was fallible but got his man and was tough but knew his limitations. And his partner Hump was cool, confident and a real buddy. A good guy to have in your corner. They had a certain vibe or a certain music to them. They felt like a good Guy Clark album or a riotous live country show, hard-bitten with a few lines of pure poetry. Things I know well. 

What really struck me is, like Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard books is that they felt like men I knew and grew up with. Being from a small KS town, I didn't feel much connection to New York or L.A., but Atlanta didn't seem too far away, and the restaurants and bars seemed like they could be familiar. I really understood the small towns that Hump and Hardman would go to from time to time, which I imagine would be alien to some city folk. It was a nice change of pace.

So, I eventually tracked them all down, a few more added from a Gardner's Used Books in Tulsa with a few of Ralph's stand-alone books, one picked up on the road in a truck stop along with a few Bruno Rossi Sharpshooters, the rest on online. They were a secret to me then, a series of books that only I seemed to know about and dig. I read a good chunk of them while working as Pinkerton guard at an aircraft plant. Eventually Lee Goldberg found out he loved them too and got them reprinted and I wasn't alone, a lot of people found out how good Ralph was. 

Atlanta Deathwatch is the one I started with, and it's been the longest since I read it, so I pulled it off the shelf. It was a good choice; I read it with ease and enjoyment rather quickly. I forgot how rough and tumble this first one is, some of the edges are smoother (just a bit) as the series goes on. Maybe it's Ralph or Hardman getting slightly older, maybe its Marcy, Hardman's complicated girlfriend. But they're a tour of the mean streets of 70s Atlanta with detours to the rich dudes as Hardman and Hump investigate the death of a co-ed who was tangled up with The Man, a black mobster. There're beatings, killings, shoot-outs and sieges, you know all the good stuff. It's a twisty mystery to boot. It's really just a helluva book.

So, I'll probably re-read them again, this time fully in order (I had to read what I had the first time) and since I remember only the feelings not the plot by this point, it'll be as close as new to me as I can get. 

And my now traditional sign-off, my first novel Gunpowder Breath is available on Amazon as an eBook!