Microreview [crime fiction]: The Wrong Quarry

Collins, Max Allan. The Wrong Quarry [Hard Case Crime, 2013]

The Meat

I love when an ending saves a book.

The Wrong Quarry, Max Allan Collins’s eleventh entry in the Quarry series, continues the exploits of Marine-sniper-turned-contract-killer Quarry—hence the title. At this point in his career, Quarry has killed his handler, known only as The Broker, and he’s hit on a new business model. Using his old boss’s files, he stalks assassins on the job, finds out who the target is, and offers the marked for death bastard a deal: Quarry will rub out both the assassins and whoever paid for the hit. For a fee. The Wrong Quarry opens with our hero following a hit team to the quaint town of Stockwell, Missouri where he soon finds himself immersed in the mysterious disappearance of Candy Stockwell, the granddaughter of the town’s patriarch. Quarry soon discovers that the family of the missing teen has put a hit on the man they believe is responsible: middle-aged and clearly gay dance instructor, Roger Vale. Quarry strikes a deal with Vale to turn the tables on Stockwell and quickly gets to work—though he can’t quite shake the feeling that he’s being played by someone.

The Wrong Quarry is an uneven, though ultimately enjoyable novel. The first hundred pages are a rapid read. Collins gives you the set-up and plunges directly into the heart of the matter. By the middle of the book, however, the story gets a bit bogged down in the back-story of Candy Stockwell. The problem is that Quarry spends far too much time talking to people who knew Candy, none of whom offer more then what we knew by page 40: Candy is/was a rich brat, prom queen, gifted artist, and town slut. The actual circumstances surrounding her death remain completely shrouded in mystery, with Collins not offering us—or Quarry—any clues as to what happened to her. Around page 168, The Wrong Quarry was hovering between and a 5 and a 6.

But Collins salvages the book in the last 50 pages with a well-placed twist—and then a second one for good measure.

This is my first Quarry novel, so there’s a good chance that I’m missing something. There seems to be a tension at the heart of the book: is it a murder mystery or an action tale? Quarry is, after all, an assassin. But only four people get killed in The Wrong Quarry. The book often reads more like a murder mystery. But Quarry’s detective work doesn’t really uncover much. By the novel’s end, it becomes apparent that this tension stems from Quarry’s professional development rather than the structure of Collins’s narrative. Towards the book’s conclusion Quarry says, “I wasn’t just killing people anymore. I had put myself in the position of having to think about the reasons why people were killed.” Since I am not a longtime reader of the series, I cannot say whether this transformation has been gradual or whether it begins with The Wrong Quarry. Nevertheless, I appreciated it.

Collins is an able writer. He balances terseness and subtle flourishes, adding (sometimes corny) humor to the straightforward narrative. I did find the sex scenes a little heavy-handed. I am by no means a prude—and the Catholic guilt instilled in me as a child has long since worn off—but there’s a certain sophomoric coarseness in the depiction of a few of the sex scenes and in the all-too-frequent references to Quarry’s torpedo. But this accounts for no more than five pages of the book. The rest is pretty damn good.

The Math

Objective score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for just 221 pages; +1 for two twists

Penalties: -1 for making me blush

Nerd coefficient: 8/10

Microreview [book]: Drug of Choice by John Lange/Michael Crichton

Lange, John [Michael Crichton]. Drug of Choice [Hard Case Crime, 2013]

Available via: Independent Booksellers; Amazon

The Meat

Not too long ago a weighty package arrived from Hard Case Crime, one of my favorite publishers of noir and pulp. Inside were eight novels by popular science fiction writer Michael Crichton under the pen name John Lange. I'd never heard of these books before, or known that Crichton had once published pseudonymously. But apparently he did just that...while a student at Harvard Medical School. Let me just state, for the record, that this is insane. 

Later, even after Crichton became famous for books like The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, the Lange novels languished out-of-print and became sought-after collectors items. Why--I'm not sure. Perhaps Crichton was embarrassed by them? Or perhaps there was something enjoyable about maintaining the mystery? Either way, Charles Addai and the good folks at Hard Case Crime managed not only to convince Crichton to put them back in print, but to re-edit the books as well.*

I decided to start with Drug of Choice, a speculative mystery about a secretive research-and-development company and its experiments with psychotropic drugs. The book is the purest pulp, the kind of thing I've often dreamed of finding serendipitously in the paperback aisle of used bookstores. Yet those adventures are often weighted down by frustrating anachronisms, like "golly gee willikers" dialogue or the sexism/racism/homophobia that was once normative but is now (thankfully) objectionable. Drug of Choice is not saddled with these burdens.

The story is tight, a thriller with just the right balance of mystery and action, and has an appealing Twilight Zone sensibility to it. The writing is also quite clear and focused. Sure, it may lack even the slightest hint of poetry or symbolism, but Crichton's prose is ultra-efficient and smooth. I read the book over the course of four days, though I easily could have consumed it in one sitting. And I mean that as a compliment.

My only real criticism is that, while a good example of pulp fiction, Drug of Choice by definition isn't really aiming to be anything more than that. It's good fun efficiently delivered, but at the end of the day, that's all it is. And the ending is a bit convoluted, though it's by no means terrible.

Still, the themes of unethical research, corporate malfeasance and manipulation of individuals should resonate in today's world as much as they four-and-a-half decades ago, making this one I unreservedly recommend to those who like their fiction pulpy.

*How much be managed before passing away in 2008 is not clear.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10.

Bonuses: +1 for being purest pulp fiction; +1 for not buzzkilling with racism/sexism/homophobia, like so many contemporaries.

Penalties:-1 for not really transcending purest pulp fiction either; -1 for the goofy ending.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10. "A mostly enjoyable experience."

Microreview [book]: Joyland by Stephen King

King, Stephen. Joyland [Hard Case Crime, 2013]

The Meat

Usually when I like a book, it's for specific reasons--it's well-written, it has great characters or a gripping plot, or it's full of big ideas and emotional heft. Every once in a while, though, a book comes along that I really do like, but can't quite put my finger on why. Joyland is one of those books.

The prose is plain, the characters underdeveloped, the plot barely existent and I can't really point you to anything resembling a big idea or repository of emotional heft. Instead, it's a fairly ordinary boy-becomes-virile-man story set in a 1970s amusement park that features some rudimentary (and barely explored) horror elements. Not sure if that sounds interesting to you, but it sounds pretty fucking boring to me. Yet for some reason, the book is nearly impossible to put down.

Exasperated by my failure to locate the source of what compelled me to read on, I began to question my skills as a critic and began contemplating a new career as one of those old dudes who brings a metal detector to the beach. Until, that is, I learned to stop worrying and just embrace the fact that Joyland is fun. Not fun the way the average blockbuster is fun, but the way quirky independent comedies that mine the same territory, like Adventureland or Ping Pong Playa, are fun. But films are a two hour or so time commitment; not so a book. So it's a testament to King's unique talent that he can keep your attention without much in the way of a hook.

Joyland will appeal to readers who actually remember places like the eponymous fictional independent amusement park. It will also appeal to those fascinated by carnival and carny culture, as well as anyone who--in a fit of humor or madness--has invoked the famous Carny Code. King sprinkles a heavy dose of carny history, lingo and cultural values throughout the book. I have no idea if these are historically accurate or not, but they had the ring of authenticity to them (which, of course, may just be a reflection of good world-building). The effect is to lend the book a richness that it would otherwise be lacking.

The actual ghost story is, at most, ancillary to the main plot, a way to get protagonist Devin Jones working full time at Joyland and over his lovesickness for college sweetheart Wendy. I guess it works well enough in that respect, but anyone going in looking for serious horror is going to be disappointed.

In the end, Joyland is a very likable book and one that most people should enjoy reading. However, it probably won't leave much of an impression once it's done. Is that a bad thing? Maybe in wintertime, but it's summer and the beach calls for books like this. Let all the hangups go and just enjoy the ride.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for being impossible to put down, despite not having a hook; +1 for 'tis the season for books like this.

Penalties: -1 for you call this a ghost story, Mr. King?

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10. "A mostly enjoyable experience."