Ace Atkins is at the top of his game when it comes to putting the reader into his story. He does vast amounts of research, but barely uses it. The attention to detail is exact and used in the right amount. He’s less interested in telling you about a time period than immersing you in it and drawing subtle parallels to the present.
Crossroad Blues, his debut novel, was the first in his series character, ex-football star, blues historian Nick Travers. As Nick travels the Mississippi delta, looking for a lost colleague and recording of blues legend Robert Johnson, Atkins makes you sweat in the humidity, even if you’re reading it in December. The music comes alive by the way it’s given history and more important, feeling. He practically makes it a character. Because of this, we never question Nick risking his life for a record.
After the Nick Travers series, Atkins went on to produce some of the most engaging historical crime fiction ever written. White Shadow was the fictional extension of his Pulitzer nominated investigative reporting into the murder of a fifties Miami crime boss. His western-meets-crime-story, Wicked City covered how a group of citizens of Phenix City, Alabama took back their town from corruption in 1954.
My personal favorite, Devil’s Garden, follows the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and trial with a young Pinkerton Op, Dashiell Hammett, working for the defense. He avoids a lot of winking to Hammett’s future as one of the fathers of hard boiled fiction, making it a great treat when he does at the end. He also shows how modern San Francisco was at the time. Atkins makes the old jazz sound like it’s the latest thing.
His latest, Infamous, follows the Urschel kidnapping that brought notoriety to George “Machine Gun” Kelly, who was badgered into a life of crime by his wife, Kathryn. It delivers the best representation of life on the Thirties ‘outlaw road’ since the movie Bonnie And Clyde. Every car, piece of advertising, and “current” event mentioned feels like it’s a part of the here and now, not a part of a museum.
Atkins’ sense of character brings life into his books, avoiding caricature at all times. Kelly is neither mad dog criminal or dope. You see his charm, his love of life, and love for his wife. He becomes a mix of comic and tragic figure, a free wheeling product of the roaring Twenties that has no real direction in the sobering Thirties. Kathryn could have been the stereotypical femme fatale, or worse- nagging wife, but Ace really looks at as a person who always gets trapped by wanting to escape. Atkins describes her history in a way that gives us an understanding of her actions without condoning them. The married couple are surrounded and influenced by a colorful assortment of bad men. Like Elmore Leonard, Atkins has that rare ability to create tension out of the stupidity of criminals.
He also gives us a great hero: Gus Jones, an ex-Texas Ranger. Gus and his partner, Doc White, are old lawmen working for the new FBI, going after a fresh breed of criminal. It doesn’t mean he’s out of his element, since he can strategize like a chess player. What makes him the hero, is that he’s the only one that takes it seriously. Being around death most of his life, he knows the score and what’s important, while everyone else sees it as a game. On top of that, his banter with Doc is great.
Whether current or historical, Ace Atkins creates worlds where you smell the earth and participate in the culture. He populates it with people who seem to breath. His next project is a series described as a modern Southern-Western that takes place in Mississippi. I can’t wait to go.
Ace will be at BookPeople on Sunday, April 18TH, at 7PM for a discussion and signing of Infamous. We will also have copies of Devil’s Garden, recently nominated for the Hammett award, and the 10TH Anniversary edition of Crossroad Blues, that includes a short story nominated for this years Edgar Award. Also, we have the hard to find paperback of the second Travers book, Leaving Trunk Blues. Local author and musician Jesse Sublette will preform some of his murder ballads. So please join us and leave your gun at the door.
–Scott Montgomery
BookPeople 