This book succeeds both as a first-rate historical novel and as a superb crime story. The death of retired kingpin charlie Wall—the White Shadow—has shocked the city, reporters, sending cops, and associates scrambling to find those responsible. As the trail winds through neighborhoods rich and poor, enmeshing the innocent and corrupt alike all the way down to the streets and casinos of Havana, an extraordinary story of revenge, honor, and greed emerges.
For charlie wall had his secrets—secrets that if discovered could destroy a criminal empire and ignite a revolution.
Wicked City: A Thriller
A small group of men meet and decide they have had enough, but what that means and where it will take them is something they could not have foreseen. From the new york times bestselling author of the Quinn Colson series comes a “noir crime classic”Mystery Ink about one of the most notorious towns in American history.
When crime-fighting attorney albert patterson is gunned down in a Phenix City, Alabama, alley in the spring of 1954, the entire town seems to pause for just a moment—and when it starts up again, there is something different about it.
Devil's Garden
San francisco, september 1921: silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis hotel-girls, jazz, bootleg hooch. And a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. And what he discovers will change American legal history—and his own life—forever. William randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict.
Says it was arbuckle who killed her—crushed her under his weight—and brings him up on manslaughter charges.
Crossroad Blues Nick Travers Book 1
Nick searches for the lost recordings of 1930s bluesman Robert Johnson—and a missing colleague—and finds trouble at every turn. The cast of characters includes a red-headed siren, an Elvis-worshipping hitman, Johnson’s ghost, and the Mississippi Delta itself. It’s here that we first meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orleans Saint turned Tulane University blues historian.
A decade later, Crossroad Blues still sings. Critical praise“in atkins’ hands, the characters are as substantial as a down home breakfast of biscuits and ham with red-eye gravy. Entertainment weekly“when Atkins old guys open up, you can really hear the music everybody talks about so reverently. The new york times"atkins' research into blues history adds depth and context to the always entertaining story, which whizzes by like an old, familiar song heard on the car radio late at night.
The chicago tribuneThis edition includes an Afterword by Greil Marcus.
Dirty South Nick Travers Book 4
As much as anyone else writing, he escapes the sentimentality that bedevils hard-boiled fiction. Salon. When music mogul teddy paris, visits nick travers and asks him to help find $700, a former teammate from the New Orleans Saints, 000 taken from a rap prodigy, Nick can't turn down his friend. He sets out with fifteen-year-old rap star, ALIAS, seeking a team of grifters that conned the kid.
As cultures clash, the story winds its way through the infamous Calliope housing projects, the newly built mansions of New Orleans's lakefront, and ultimately to the brackish muck of the Bayou Savage. Critical praise“as welcome as a cold beer on a hot Jazz Fest afternoon. Washington post“Reads like a blues song brought to life.
Chicago sun-times“as a writer, atkins knows how to walk fine lines with perfect balance; his books are compassionate, hard and richly atmospheric in a way that never overshadows narrative. The missing money will pay a bounty on Paris's head that was set by a crosstown rival, a street-hard thug named Cash.
Nick soon finds himself lost in the world of Gucci-lined Bentleys and endless bottles of Cristal champagne.
Dark End of the Street Nick Travers Book 3
With a precise eye for detail, atkins takes nick travers on a journey into the hidden pockets of New Orleans, the battered roadhouses and truck stops of Mississippi, and the streets of Memphis that only an insider could know. The plan is simple. Atkins is an astute observer of life as well as a singular voice in fiction.
Usa today. He turned to the streets, decades ago, where, he disappeared. But as travers knows, these simple jobs seldom turn out smoothly. His friend's brother is clyde james, who, in 1968, was one of the finest soul singers Memphis had to offer. All nick travers, a former professional football player turned professor, has to do is drive up Highway 61 from New Orleans to Memphis and track down the lost brother of one of his best friends.
Welcome to ace atkins's new South, where you won't find a single southern belle or dripping magnolia. Critical praise“when all is said and done, Dark End sheds light on the underbelly of politics, racism and the junking of American culture.
Leavin' Trunk Blues Nick Travers Book 2
First published in print in 2000, this second book in the Nick Travers series remains a classic. Atkins makes the unseen parts of New Orleans and Chicago really come alive. If the streets of chicago's south Side could talk, they would probably speak in the cracked voices of the bluesmen who shuffle through this soulful mystery.
The new york times book reviewin the 1950s, Ruby Walker boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to the Promised Land – Chicago. A major player in the mystery genre. ". She became one of the greatest blues singers the city has ever known, only to lose everything when she was convicted of murdering her lover and producer, Billy Lyons, in 1959.
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Infamous
. Set in the first days of the modern fbi, some of the most colorful supporting characters in recent crime fiction, Infamous is a passionate blend of historical novel and crime story featuring an unexpected hero, and unforgettable femme fatale Kathryn Kelly—the Lady Macbeth of Depression-era crime.
The Fallen A Quinn Colson Novel Book 7
The bank robbers wreaking havoc across the south are carrying out their heists with such skill and precision that they remind Tibbehah County Sheriff Quinn Colson of the raids he once led as an Army Ranger. The enemies, he has plenty of. In fact, their techniques are so like the ones in the Ranger Handbook that he can’t help wondering if the outlaws are former Rangers themselves.
And that’s definitely going to be a problem.
The Innocents A Quinn Colson Novel Book 6
Quinn knows he doesn't owe his hometown a damn thing, but he can't resist the pull of becoming a lawman again and accepts a badge from his former colleague, foul-mouthed acting Sheriff Lillie Virgil. After being voted out of office and returning to the war zone he’d left behind, Quinn Colson is back in Jericho, trying to fix things with his still-married high school girlfriend and retired Hollywood stuntman father.
Quinn colson returns to jericho, and gets pulled back into a world of greed and violence in this gritty, Mississippi, darkly comic tale from New York Times bestselling Southern crime master Ace Atkins.
The Shameless A Quinn Colson Novel Book 9
Quinn's been fighting evil and corruption since he was a kid, at home or as a U. S. If he manages to get elected, the Syndicate will be untouchable. But quinn was just a kid himself in 1997, and these days he's got more on his plate than twenty-year-old suspicious death. After all, his wife Maggie was a close friend of Brandon Taylor.
. Army ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's trying to shut down the criminal syndicate that's had a stranglehold on Tibbehah for years, stolen goods, trafficking drugs, and young women through the MidSouth. Buried secrets, dirty lies, and unbridled greed and ambition raise the stakes down South in the lauded crime series from New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins.
Twenty years ago, brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teen boy who ended his life too soon. And then there's senator jimmy vardaman, who's cut out the old political establishment riding the Syndicate's money and power--plus a hefty helping of racism and ignorance--straight to the governor's office.
Tibbehah will be lawless.