Killing Quarry

As readers who have followed the Quarry novels know, the narratives fall into several categories, the two major ones being Quarry’s time as a hitman and Quarry’s years hiring out his services to the targets of other hitmen. This novel is the last, chronologically, of the second group of novels; this is not to say other “list” narratives may not yet appear. Since returning to the character in The Last Quarry (2006), I have been jumping around in the continuity — the original four books were written in the ’70s with another in 1987 — staying (usually) in a ’70s/’80s time frame, filling in the blanks as they occur to me.

Thus a series that began as contemporary has, like its author, become a period piece.

This novel is specifically a sequel to Quarry’s Deal (originally titled The Dealer), first published in 1976. That novel, with an afterword by me, is available in a new edition from Hard Case Crime. By the way, I never anticipated writing a sequel to a novel I wrote 43 years ago.

My thanks to HCC editor Charles Ardai for his continued good will and support; my friend and agent Dominick Abel; and of course my wife, writer Barbara Collins, my first reader/editor, who provided vital input during the writing of this novel.