Quarry's paperbacks

  
I discovered Max Allan Collins' "Quarry" books about a year ago and I am slowly working my way thru the series. There's 12 books so far (the first one was published in 1976 and the latest one was published recently). The series is about an ex Vietnam vet who turns pro hit-man. Apparently, Collins was the first author to make a hit-man a main character.There's a new tv series but I'm not gonna check it out until I've got thru all 12 books.

Hardboiled from Hard Case Crime

I finished Lawrence Block's "A Walk Among the Tombstones" the other day. 400+ hardboiled pages. Thoroughly enjoyed every page. Good stuff. This is my first book in Block's series about Matt Scudder but hopefully not the last. There's a new(ish) film adaptation out but I haven't watched it.

...and now I'm halfway thru Richard Stark's (aka Donald E. Westlake) "Lemons Never Lie" from 1971. Great stuff. The book was in a huge pile of books on my shelf and I probably wasn't gonna read it till later but then I noticed a "rave" for the book by Lawrence Block and as I'd just finished HIS awesome book. I knew I haaad to read it right away. Both books are published by Hard Case Crime books.

More cool reprints from HARD CASE CRIME books

"BLOOD ON THE MINK" - By Robert Silverberg. This cool reprint from HARD CASE CRIME (2011) is the first reprint since the novel was originally published in the last issue of the American pulp magazine "TRAPPED" in 1960. I've just today received it. In the new afterword the author says he hadn't thought about that story for 50 years until the guy behind HCC found an old copy of the magazine. I love all HCC's covers. They're not old but new and made for these books. I wish more covers looked like in the 50s and early 60s. Covers today suck ass.

"The Consummata" by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins (late 1960s + 2011)

I received the second latest book from every hard-boiled crime reader's fave publisher, Hard Case Crime; THE CONSUMMATA!! It was kicked off by Mickey Spillane back in the late 60s but he never finished the damn thing and then he croaked. Now his buddy Max Allan Collins has finished it and if nothing else the cover looks ...as always with Hard Case Crime... smashing! I paid £2.14 for my copy!!! It's brand new but has "review copy -not for sale" printed on the front cover (which is kinda neat me thinks). This is the first of the new books from HCC since their one year hiatus (due to being between publishers) that I see and the book format has (at least with this volume) changed from the small paperback size to slightly bigger and with a better binding (or at least so it seems). I'm not sure I'm all that happy with the bigger format, I mean the smaller paperback size is PULP size! But, anyhoo, the contents is the same I guess. But still. But ANYWAY I look forward to getting into this sucker despite size... but, uhhhhh, I've already got way too many unread books!! Argh.