Right Time for “The Wrong Quarry”

January 7th, 2014 by Max Allan Collins

Today is the pub date for THE WRONG QUARRY. So you should be able to find it in your local brick-and-mortar bookstore, and it’s certainly available on line from the usual suspects.

This also means that those of you who received one of the fourteen advance copies I sent out can now post your review at Amazon (they don’t let advance reviews go up unless written by certain approved reviewers). And your reviews are encouraged at Barnes and Noble, Goodreads and other sites.

I can’t emphasize enough how important the Amazon reviews are, even those of a line or two. WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER has 80 reviews and that constantly increasing stream of reviews keeps the book selling. It has done considerably better, which may surprise you, than the new Heller, ASK NOT, which has only 21 reviews. Please support all of the books you like (not just mine) with Amazon and other reviews. It’s a textbook grassroots way of helping out the authors you enjoy.

Also available, or will be soon, is an audio book of THE WRONG QUARRY. I just found out the delightful news that Dan John Miller (the voice of Nate Heller) has read THE WRONG QUARRY. This is from Audible, and is a download only. Audible has also done the first five QUARRY novels, as well, although with another reader. I haven’t heard any of these yet, but Barb and I will be listening to them over this year on various car trips to Chicago, Des Moines and St. Louis. Dan John Miller is my preferred reader for all my work. (He did a great job on WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER as well as the Mallorys and several of the “disaster” series.)

I am deep into QUARRY’S CHOICE. It’s a little odd to have so many people talking to me about THE WRONG QUARRY while I am so immersed in CHOICE, which is a change of pace – not a “list” novel, it follows Quarry on a job he’s doing for the Broker. It takes place about a year after THE FIRST QUARRY.

The reviews thus far for THE WRONG QUARRY have been stellar, I am pleased to say.

One of the powerhouses among book review sites, Bookgasm, has posted this terrific WRONG QUARRY review.

Criminal Element has a wonderful WRONG QUARRY review from Doreen Sheridan.

It’s always a thrill when a writer you respect reviews a book of yours favorably. Here is the great Ed Gorman – who has been reading Quarry from the start – with some very insightful commentary on WRONG QUARRY.

Nerdspan likes THE WRONG QUARRY, too.

The much-respected (and deservedly so) UK reviewer Mike Carlson has offered up one of the best and smartest discussions of WRONG QUARRY.

Here’s another cool UK review of WRONG QUARRY.

And here’s a fun one from Curiosity of a Social Misfit, very good but with some typos anyway missing words.

On another note, I am somewhat melancholy at shutting Crusin’ down as a regularly performing bar band. As I’ve said, we are not breaking up, and are accepting event bookings. But the reality is, we are moving from twenty-plus gigs a year to probably three or four.

So there were odd resonances when the Des Moines Register called me – as an Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame member – for my reactions to the passing of Phil Evelry of the Everly Brothers of Shenandoah, Iowa. My comments are toward the end of the article. The concert I mention is one I attended with the late Paul Thomas, my longtime musical collaborator.

M.A.C.

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