Quarry is a professional hit-man working for a man known only as Broker. He works as a part of a finely tuned organization and has no qualms about his work - recently back from Vietnam, Quarry is more than acquainted with death and in new line of work he is almost always targeting people that are living on the other side of the law. So it is not like he is losing sleep over any of his contracts.

Then out of the blue somebody tries to kill the Broker - unfortunately Quarry was also present so he took the unsuccessful attack on Broker as an assault on his life too. So he gets a new contract to find who are the perpetrators and this takes him to the southern parts of the USA where he will get head to head with some pretty unsavory and violent characters.

This is my first quarry novel and I gotta say it got me hooked. Main character is not exactly Matt Helm but he is very close.

Violence is present but it is not central but supportive part of the story (sometimes you will read a sentence in which Quarry just plainly says "I shot him" and that is it).

Recommended to all fans of fast action, thrillers, witty story and lots of violence. ( )

"Quarry's Choice" is the eleventh novel in Collins' Quarry series, which was first published in 1976 in the aptly titled "Quarry." However, Collins does something surprising in this latest entry to the series and, instead of an older, graying protagonist, the reader is returned nearly to the beginning of the series and, chronologically, this book is the second in the series. More importantly, the story takes the reader back to the mid 70's and to small town Southern bars and strip clubs. You can definitely hear the Southern rock playing in the background throughout this book.

Quarry was a hitman before it became popular to be a hitman. A former Vietnam Vet who returned home to find his fiancé with another guy. Naturally, Quarry kicked over a jack holding up the car over this guy, ending him. After he got out of that jam, the Broker hired him to do the only thing he had ever been trained to do. Quarry is a hardboiled series with a violent killer as its hero. The tone is sardonic. The books are chockfull of action as Quarry negotiates his way through numerous obstacles.
These books often take Quarry into small towns, singles bars, nightclubs, and the like.
This one,too, has a lot of action taking place in clubs where the women wear hot pink hot-pants and matching halter tops. Quarry is warned though that he's in a swamp filled with snakes and gators and inbreds that will mess him up if he's not on his toes. He gets plenty of action in every sense of the word here. At times, the pace is deliberately slow, but at other times, the action is just plain crazy with the body count piling up, waitresses wielding claw hammers, and rednecks wielding blowtorches.
Quarry's Choice is most of all a fun read and a great addition to the series.
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