Memphis crime drama ‘Quarry’ set to debut on Cinemax

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“Quarry,” an eight-episode cable crime drama set in Memphis in 1972 and partly shot here, debuts at 9 tonight on the subscription cable network Cinemax.

Based on a series of novels begun in 1976 by author Max Allan Collins , “Quarry” stars Logan Marshall-Green as a Marine veteran of Vietnam who is recruited to be a professional assassin after he returns to his hometown of Memphis.

Intended as the first season of an ongoing series, “Quarry” was developed for television and scripted by Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller, who previously collaborated on the similarly gritty crime drama, “Rectify,” for SundanceTV. The director of all eight episodes is Greg Yaitanes, whose credits include the Cinemax series “Banshee” and the ABC cult program “Lost.”

Directed by John Hillcoat, the “Quarry” episodes scheduled to air weekly through Oct. 28 were shot in 2015, mostly in the New Orleans area, but with five days of production in Memphis in July.

“Quarry” aspires to connect the undiagnosed posttraumatic stress of its lead antihero with the civic psychosis of Memphis in the years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The program includes plenty of period Memphis references, creating what Variety called “a Southern-fried noir vibe.”

The arrival of “Quarry” means that two Memphisset programs are now on television. The other is the Oprah Winfrey-produced “Greenleaf,” a breakout hit on the OWN network that chronicles the scandals and passions associated with a Memphis megachurch with a mostly African-American congregation. “Greenleaf” is shot in Atlanta.