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.