“Ignorance is bliss, all right, but it’s also a good way to get blown away.”

Quarry runs into Turner, an old partner whom things went sour with five years before. Following Turner, Quarry ends up on a porno film set, which is in a snowbound lodge. Two murders quickly follow. It's not the best of the Quarry books, but it is entertaining! On to #5! ( )

Quarry’s Cut (1977) (Quarry #4) by Max Allan Collins. This book finds Quarry retired and living in Wisconsin. Things are going well for him. He even finds a local diner/small hotel that he enjoys eating at and gets to know the people operating it Then one day he spies a man from his past and things change rapidly.
Is the man in Quarry’s area of the world because he is part of a team to hit Quarry? Or, after being interrogated, is the man’s story about the hit being against a movie director working in the area true. Knowing his life depends on the answer, Quarry has to make some hard decisions.
Winter in Wisconsin means snow and the lodge the director is working at gets snowed in, but only after Quarry gets inside. Turns out it is a porno flick that is being made. The director is about to leave the porn business behind and slip into the Hollywood mainstream because his pictures are just that good and he comes in under budget every time.
But then bodies start dropping and we know it is not our hero doing the trigger work. Faced with an unknown murderer in a snowed in chalet (shades of Christie) Quarry doesn’t know who to trust.
This is a nice little mystery from Max Collins, Our unusual protagonist does well although it becomes rapidly apparent to the reader just who the true enemy is. Still, a “fun” read. ( )

2 stars. Didn't like this one as much; it's much darker than the previous ones. ( )

How good is this book? It's a fun romp through a killer's eyes and Collins is so good at portraying Quarry that you often forget he is a violent killer.

It is filled with terrific descriptions such as that of Wilma, "an enormously fat woman who liked her own cooking even better" than her clients did. Quarry marvels at her ability to squeeze her three or four hundred pounds into a restaurant booth.

And the story gets even more amusing when Quarry finds himself hidden in a motel closet while his old partner teaches someone some new moves in bed gymnastics. When they stayed in the sack for nearly two hours, Quarry felt stupid hiding in the closet but there was no need to kill the girl, no need for collateral damage. Kill two people and the crap will hit the fan, Quarry explains.

Overall, this book was good, but seemed to lack some of the "wow" factor in some of the other Quarry books. The author tried to do something a little different here than in the first three books. Keeps the series from going stale.
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For some bizarre reason I have always enjoyed the “hit-man” type books: Keller, Quarry, et al. Perhaps it stems from an innate desire to take out the Lords of Finance and bring some excitement into what is otherwise an extremely law-abiding life.

Be that as it may, Perfect Crime Books is bringing back the early Quarry books by Max Allan Collins, the first of which was written while he was at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I bought all of them.

Quarry’s Cut was the last of the early ones and it does show some signs of tentativeness, an insecurity with the character, that is lacking from the later volumes. But as the story progresses one can already see signs of the later Quarry.

Quarry has semi-retired following the death of his broker, but he has managed to purloin the Broker’s files and now makes his living offering his services to targets of the contracts and then taking out the contractor who hired the hit-man. He’s enjoying chili at Wilma’s Inn close to his A-frame house when he sees Turner, a hit-man and former partner with whom he had had a falling out several years before. They exchange a few words (euphemistically speaking) and Quarry beats the target’s name out of him, thinking he, himself, might be the target, in which case it will be important to learn who might have hired Turner.

He learns the real target is a porno movie director (and soon the puns come fast and furious) and makes his way to the abandoned resort where Jerry Castile, the director, is shooting what he hopes will be his last porno flick. Quarry offers him his deal and soon we are in the midst of an Agatha Christie with bodies falling and a blizzard cutting everyone off from the outside. Quarry only knows that one of the cast may be Turner’s partner in the hit.

Very enjoyable but only 3 stars in comparison to some of the later Quarry’s. ( )