2 out of 5

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Glancing back over my Quarry reviews, I’ll normally mention something about Max Allan Collins’ consistency up front (and ironically and not purposefully, used almost the exact same wording for this, twice), then praise the series for being mainline pulp goodness with – depending on the entry – some unexpected flourish, then also roll my eyes at the sex stuff.

There’s a point late in Quarry’s Choice during which Quarry – our nicknamed, otherwise unnamed hitman – notes that he’s not too much older than the young stripper he’s been shaking the bed during the preceding 200 pages; this, unfortunately, only makes the already-creepy vibes of reading a then-65+ Collins thinking up as many different slang words as he can for the genitalia of a “what’s the age of consent in this state?”-aged girl even creepier; it’s one aside amongst a few similar ones where it feels like MAC is trying a bit too hard to make this okay. Taking a half-step back, acknowledging that it’s part of the writer’s pulp checklist to include egregious sex details, and that I think he’s just not very good at writing them, I can squint and see how this character – Luann – made sense in the narrative, and there aren’t really any other main females in the cast, and the plot on this one is very much on the thin side… so putting all those twos together…

I guess. But while this stuff almost always feels somewhat unnecessary to me in the genre, and especially when Collins does it, it was especially especially so in this book. Because: Biloxi Blues, unlike the majority of MAC’s work – consistency, remember! – is a lot of filler. There’s potential in the setup: Quarry’s taskmaster, The Broker, is subjected to a failed hit attempt; The Broker thus sends Quarry to go work for a client in Biloxi, Mississippi to suss out the assailant; this client, in turn, sends Quarry to go work for a rival casino owner, promising him the assailant is within their ranks: a doubly-layered hitlist. Fun! But the idea truly only gets to the drawing board, as the stakes of the setup are not much – all the different foes are knuckleheads of one variety or another – and Biloxi and its inhabitants are cartoon stand-ins for much weightier environments / casts that’ve appeared in prior Quarry books. There’s very little intrigue in the core whodunnit; mustache twirling will have you making a likely guess early on. And when Collins has to resort to a pointless runaround as the main climax of Quarry’s journey – that moment when you’re not sure how he’ll survive; admittedly one of a few good scenes where mood and environment perk up, even if it’s later discovered as a runaround – it underlines, alongside a few more uninspired writerly tics, that this Quarry entry was banged out moreso out of need (I’d note the Quarry TV show was right around this time…) than inspiration.