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. 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. 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. But when James's wife and close friend were murdered, his life was shattered. He turned to the streets, where, decades ago, he disappeared. Travers's search for the singer soon leads him to the casinos in Tunica, Mississippi, and converges with the agenda of the Dixie Mafia, a zealot gubernatorial candidate linked to a neo-Confederacy movement, and an obsessed killer who thinks he has a true spiritual link to the late Elvis Presley. 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. Atkins is an astute observer of life as well as a singular voice in fiction." – USA Today
Amazon.com Review
Jazz historian and wannabe PI Nick Travers comes to the aid of a young woman in trouble and gets in a lot more as a result in this lively caper involving the Dixie Mafia, a decades-old murder, political skullduggery, and a hit man who thinks he's Elvis's younger brother. A strong narrative and excellent sense of place pervades the newest outing in this good--and getting better--series, but what matters almost as much is the music both the author and his hero love, which reveals itself in the nicely cadenced prose and a plot featuring the old Delta blues men Atkins admiringly portrays. It all makes for an enjoyable evening of reading that would have been even better if they'd shipped a CD of the music Nick and his creator like best along with it. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
As a follow-up to the well-received Crossroad Blues, Atkins offers another fast-paced, hot and heavy Southern suspense yarn that only occasionally defies credibility. Nick Travers, a former professional football star who now teaches blues history at Tulane University, is approached by an old friend who wants him to locate her brother, Clyde James, a once famous blues singer who hasn't been seen for some 25 years and may be dead. In a seemingly unrelated event, a young woman visits the home of her parents who were murdered a few weeks before, collects some papers from a hidden safe, then is accosted by two thugs who take her to a Mafia-owned casino and try to force information from her that she doesn't have. Travers happens to be at the casino seeking word of Clyde James and spots the trussed-up woman on a TV monitor. He rescues her, killing a man in the process, and the two go on the run. The action doesn't let up, moving between Memphis and New Orleans as a plethora of Dixie mobsters, hit men, Klan-like Sons of the South and unsavory gubernatorial candidates are stirred and shaken. Some of the characters border on caricature, especially two of the villains, a woman named Miss Perfect and an Elvis-look-alike hit man. The only other false notes in this otherwise sharply observed thriller come in the confusing finale, a not very believable sting operation. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
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. 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. 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. But when James's wife and close friend were murdered, his life was shattered. He turned to the streets, where, decades ago, he disappeared. Travers's search for the singer soon leads him to the casinos in Tunica, Mississippi, and converges with the agenda of the Dixie Mafia, a zealot gubernatorial candidate linked to a neo-Confederacy movement, and an obsessed killer who thinks he has a true spiritual link to the late Elvis Presley. 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. Atkins is an astute observer of life as well as a singular voice in fiction." – USA Today
Amazon.com Review
Jazz historian and wannabe PI Nick Travers comes to the aid of a young woman in trouble and gets in a lot more as a result in this lively caper involving the Dixie Mafia, a decades-old murder, political skullduggery, and a hit man who thinks he's Elvis's younger brother. A strong narrative and excellent sense of place pervades the newest outing in this good--and getting better--series, but what matters almost as much is the music both the author and his hero love, which reveals itself in the nicely cadenced prose and a plot featuring the old Delta blues men Atkins admiringly portrays. It all makes for an enjoyable evening of reading that would have been even better if they'd shipped a CD of the music Nick and his creator like best along with it. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
As a follow-up to the well-received Crossroad Blues, Atkins offers another fast-paced, hot and heavy Southern suspense yarn that only occasionally defies credibility. Nick Travers, a former professional football star who now teaches blues history at Tulane University, is approached by an old friend who wants him to locate her brother, Clyde James, a once famous blues singer who hasn't been seen for some 25 years and may be dead. In a seemingly unrelated event, a young woman visits the home of her parents who were murdered a few weeks before, collects some papers from a hidden safe, then is accosted by two thugs who take her to a Mafia-owned casino and try to force information from her that she doesn't have. Travers happens to be at the casino seeking word of Clyde James and spots the trussed-up woman on a TV monitor. He rescues her, killing a man in the process, and the two go on the run. The action doesn't let up, moving between Memphis and New Orleans as a plethora of Dixie mobsters, hit men, Klan-like Sons of the South and unsavory gubernatorial candidates are stirred and shaken. Some of the characters border on caricature, especially two of the villains, a woman named Miss Perfect and an Elvis-look-alike hit man. The only other false notes in this otherwise sharply observed thriller come in the confusing finale, a not very believable sting operation.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.