In Pisa, Italy, an Armenian immigrant named Marco Iprannossian sits in jail awaiting judgment on the attempted murder of a local official.

The novel opens on the first day of his hearing--three years after his arrest--and follows the lives of Marco, his friends on the outside, the judge presiding over this case, her husband, and their teenage daughter, Lea. Through deceptively structured as a crime novel, Quarry's real concerns are both far smaller and far larger than those of a typical whodunit.

Houdart's modern tale, presented in a series of brief, elliptical snapshots, is a precision-cut gem of literary minimalism.