I apologize for the emphasis on hawking my wares here for the last few weeks, but it’s not often I have two books out at essentially the same time.

And, at least in the Collins household, the 50th anniversary of Quarry is kind of a big deal (specifically of the publication of the first novel about him, The Broker, available from Hard Case Crime as Quarry, my intended title). The imminent publication of Quarry’s Reunion – sporting a fantastic Paul Mann cover – is the official 50th Anniversary Release. But there’s something else that’s exciting, at least to me.

As some of you know, I do a certain amount of work for Kino Lorber doing commentaries with my buddy Heath Holland. A few months ago I contacted Jeffrey Goodman, the director of the 2008 movie The Last Lullaby, based on my short story “A Matter of Principal” and the novel it spawned, The Last Quarry…a novel that itself spawned this whole raft of Quarry novels I never expected to get to write.

As a collector of DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K discs, I asked Jeffrey if the film’s physical media rights were available (I knew its distributor had placed The Last Lullaby with some streaming services). I wanted to see if we could get The Last Lullaby released on Blu-ray as part of the 50th Anniversary of Quarry.

Jeffrey loved the idea and acquired the go-ahead from his distributor. Next, I approached Frank Tarzi, head honcho of Kino. Lightning fast, Frank got on board. I got Heath involved, so that we could do a commentary where he would interview Jeffrey and me together.

I am very fond of the short film, “A Matter of Principal,” made in the early 2000s by Jeffrey from my script, and hoped we could include it on the Blu-ray as a bonus feature. I felt it would be a particularly nice touch, because first of all, it’s a good little film; and second, the character is called Quarry, whereas in The Last Lullaby he had been renamed Price (a name I kind of like) to protect my sequel rights.

I wanted to make it clear Lullaby was a Quarry movie.

Just last week I learned that we would indeed be able to include the short film on the Blu-ray. And another significant piece of news came in shortly after that: The Last Lullaby will have a December 2026 release! That gives us a Quarry novel in November and a Quarry Blu-ray in December.

Some of you may recall I had some issues with the film because a second writer worked on the script after my initial two drafts (and of course I was the source writer). But I did give notes after the rewrite, which Jeffrey largely paid heed to, and anyway it’s a good film, which is all the source writer can ask, beyond being paid (which I was, rather handsomely).

I’ve always liked the film. Looking at it for the first time in many years, I’ve warmed to it even more. The late Tom Sizemore makes an excellent latterday Quarry, and librarian Sasha Alexander is a terrific unlikely target for a hitman. The direction is excellent and should have led to more Goodman films. It has its own distinct approach and mood. And I am particularly fond of the Midwest setting.

There’s some irony in that. As some will recall, the single season of the HBO/Cinemax Quarry TV series was set in Louisiana and leaned into that setting, as if it were a key element of the Quarry stories. Now the truth is that the series was shot there simply to take advantage of generous tax credits. My Quarry yarns are not steeped in swamp blues.

Jeffrey is a longtime Louisiana resident, and he went out of his way to make his film (shot perhaps half an hour from his house) look like Quarry’s Midwest. My early books in particular, written at the Iowa Writers Workshop (Bait Money, No Cure for Death, Quarry) were in part my effort to show that hardboiled crime fiction didn’t have to be set in New York or Los Angeles. Much of my Iowa upbringing is in those books (Quarry himself is an Ohio boy, and the first book takes place in Port City, Iowa, a lightly fictionalized Muscatine).

This is one of the reasons why I consider The Last Lullaby a better representation of what I am up to in the Quarry novels than the TV series – and why I prefer it.

We had a book giveaway (of Quarry’s Reunion) last week and the copies went fast. These were ARC’s, advanced copies although they are in the same format as the actual books will be and differ little. When that book hits print, and I can access some copies, we’ll do another book giveaway.

Antiques Web is now available, the latest in our long-running Trash ‘n’ Treasures comic cozy series. The “our” in the previous sentence is my wife Barb and me – “Barbara Allan.”

Our novels used to be carried regularly by Barnes & Noble, and in fact often made their cozy mystery bestseller lists. But our current publisher, Severn House, is based in the UK and our penetration into B & B and some other brick-and-mortar stores can be spotty.

Severn recently joined up with Joffe in the UK and we anticipate our bookstore availability will improve quite a bit. In the meantime, please send for Antiques Web at Amazon and other favorite online booksellers of yours; you should be able to get the hardcover and e-books as well. If you’ve missed some of the other Severn House Antiques titles, those are available in trade as well as hardcover. The series numbering has started over at Amazon with the Severn-published titles, omitting the many Kensington titles.

We’ve had nice comments about Death by Fruitcake, our Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures movie, a micro-budget affair we made ourselves. It can be found on Tubi and various other services, sometimes for a fee, now and then not. YouTube has it free, for example, from the service Free Time Movies.

Now for physical media fans like me, here’s something interesting: Amazon has been bouncing around the price for the DVD of Death by Fruitcake from $22.98 to (gasp!) $4.83 and various points in between. Right now, it’s at its 90-day low!

And the Blue Christmas DVD – our 2024 micro-budget but acclaimed mash-up of A Christmas Carol and The Maltese Falcon – is Amazon at an almost equally astonishing $7.49. The blu-ray is $12.70.

These are perfect stocking stuffers at this price, so please take advantage. Do be aware that while these micro-budget productions have been mostly well-received, you will find occasional condescending coal among the candy-cane opinions.

Here is a review that should tell you whether or not you would enjoy Blue Christmas. It’s from Patrick J. Regal at Letterboxd.

A note to Patrick Regal, who I do not know. If you e-mail me at macphilms@hotmail.com, I will send you a Christmas present: Death by Fruitcake. Yes, I am incredibly generous, but hey, it’s only gonna cost me $4.83.

M.A.C.