The Last Quarry (17 page)

It was a typical flip, kidding-on-the-square remark of mine—after all, McGinnis is the artist behind the classic Sean Connery “James Bond” movie posters!—but I’ll be damned if Charles didn’t call me up and say, yes, he had lined “Bob McGinnis” up for the cover of the new Quarry.

Having Mr. McGinnis’s brilliant work adorning a book of mine is one of the happiest events of my career—the Mickey Spillane/Gold Medal Books era during which Robert McGinnis first flourished had
everything to do with the perditious road I chose to spend my life going down. I thank Charles, and Bob, for their kindness and generosity.

The book itself is an expansion of that much-anthologized short story, “A Matter of Principal,” with a dab from another Quarry tale, “Guest Services.” The reason behind this approach is twofold. For various personal agendas, both Charles and I wanted to make this book a tie-in to the release of “Shades of Noir” on DVD. But, also, filmmaker Jeffrey Goodman had decided he wanted to make a feature-length film version of “A Matter of Principal.”

So the combined result of Charles’s request for a new Quarry novel, and Jeffrey’s request for an expanded version of “A Matter of Principal,” was this novel (and a screenplay version). Whether Jeffrey and I are fortunate enough to see this story brought in its entirety to the screen remains to be seen—well, I hope it will be seen; in any case, I feel fortunate that Jeffrey created a wonderful short film that led to this one last Quarry adventure.

Editor Ardai, by the way, is responsible for the title,
The Last Quarry
. (The title of the short story was just a silly pun on “principle,” and has confused readers, editors and viewers of the short film ever since. Not every writer can lay claim to causing so much confusion with so casual a stroke of the word processor.) Thanks for that, too, Charles.

Is
this the last Quarry?

Well, Quarry and I are whores at heart, so anything is possible. But should I ever write any more stories about this man—who ties with Nate Heller as my favorite among my characters—the action will in all likelihood pre-date this novel. This, in my mind, is indeed the last story about him. He is, after all, retired and in the care of a good woman.

The most perverse conclusion I can envision for Quarry, you see, is a happy ending.

Max Allan Collins

Muscatine, Iowa

September 2005

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