"In Quarry Steps To, Tony Quarry faces the dilemma of his life - to use karate in a circumstance other than to defend himself or to help someone else, a key element of his morality. Protecting a retired teacher from teenage vandals, Quarry runs afoul of their embittered parents. They're residents of Sligoville, a rural hamlet eroded by lost jobs and governmental indifference. Filled with the resentment of whites left behind, survival mode has witnessed a fraying of their moral fiber. A turn toward criminality has been partially held in check by Tink Sputter, their self-anointed preacher with an Old Testament sense of justice. In turn, Sputter's efforts are more than leveled by the vengeful Fireman Lowbridge whose weapon of choice is arson. After several violent encounters with Quarry, Sputter demands satisfaction in the form of a duel. Quarry is to fight Country Blackstrop, a self-absorbed behemoth and a reflexive bully. Sputter threatens to harass Quarry and those he loves unless he accepts the challenge. Conversely, Sputter will regard the outcome as Divine judgment. But even as the tormented Quarry struggles toward his fateful decision, Lowbridge nurses his own version of justice."
About the Author: Raised in New York City and Kings Park, New York, fiction writer, RJ McCarthy, has lived in the South more than half his life. He received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1972 and worked as a Clinical Psychologist before retiring in 2006 to devote himself to writing full-time. An athlete in high school and college, physical fitness has remained an integral part of his life - he earned a black belt in karate from Shotokan Karate of America at 34, placed second in the 90-kilo division of the Virginia State Olympic-style weightlifting meet at 39, and won the silver medal (shot put) in the North Carolina Senior Games at 60. Physical prowess is often a key feature in his protagonists' profiles. McCarthy is a member of the Virginia Writer's Group. He's been writing fiction for almost 50 years and has a binder full of rejections to prove it. Quarry Steps To is the third in a series of crime fiction novels, Quarry Steps Up and Quarry Steps In the first two. He has also published the novels, Where Seldom Is Heard and Wilhelmina: An Imagined Memoir. Married and the father of two adult children, he and his wife, Susan, reside with two dogs and three cats in Norfolk, Virginia.