Publishers Weekly
05/28/2018
Bestseller Atkins’s solid if relatively uneventful eighth novel set in Mississippi’s Tibbehah County (after 2017’s The Fallen) finds Sheriff Quinn Colson, a former Army Ranger, preparing for his wedding, but first he must handle a murder inquiry resulting from a power struggle between rival drug trafficking operations. Fannie Hathcock, who runs a strip bar called Vienna Place, is concerned that the Pritchard brothers, Tyler and Cody, her ostensible business partners, aren’t being straight with her. Fannie sends a trusted employee, 20-year-old African-American Ordeen Davis, to check out the Pritchards’ property when she believes it to be unoccupied. Unfortunately, Tyler and Cody’s uncle Heath, a racist ex-con who’s been jailed for selling marijuana, is on hand to spot Ordeen and shoot him in the back. Davis’s mother, an old friend of Quinn’s family, beseeches the sheriff to get justice for her son. Not a whole lot of interest follows. The entry works best as a long setup for major developments promised for book nine. Author tour. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (July)
From the Publisher
Mississippi’s rural Tibbehah County—the evocative setting for Ace Atkins’ superior series about Quinn Colson, a former Army Ranger turned sheriff—is the crossroads of all things good and evil...Action-packed...Tibbehah County and the town of Jericho are small areas with big-city problems as Atkins maintains the sense of community that flows through the region.”—Associated Press
More Praise for The Sinners
“[A] boisterous series.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“The Quinn Colson series just keeps getting better and better. Its blend of country noir and badass humor is as smooth as three fingers of Gentleman Jack....If you like country noir, and you haven’t visited Tibbehah County, you’re overdue for a road trip.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Atkins draws a flawed hero with a strong sense of morality, and he consistently delivers complex relationships, rich internal conflicts and suspenseful action. He's also a master of dialogue, often mining Southern aphorisms for distinctive humor. The Sinners rolls all that into its timely, intense and enthralling plot. There are many sins in the novel, but the greatest would be missing it.”—Shelf Awareness
“With it’s Elmore Leonard-feel and a cast of unforgettable character, this is noir with a deep South edge.”—Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Praise For Ace Atkins’s Quinn Colson Series
“In Quinn Colson, bestselling author Ace Atkins has created an American hero in a time when we need him.”—C. J. Box
“Ace Atkins’s Quinn Colson series is, quite simply, the best in crime fiction today—and also so much more. With a rich cast of characters, and a hero we can count on, these are tales of morality and desperation, of shocking violence and the enduring resilience of family and community. And the emotional places they take us make them unforgettable.”—Megan Abbott
“Quinn Colson is my kind of guy. I would follow him anywhere.”—Lee Child
“Atkins finds his natural-born storytellers everywhere. It’s all music to these ears.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
Kirkus Reviews
2018-05-29
Quinn Colson, the sheriff of Mississippi's Tibbehah County, juggles old-school and newfangled gangs while praying that someone will get him to the church on time.Now that Quinn's finally looking forward to getting married and acquiring an instant family that includes nurse Maggie Powers and her 7-year-old son, Brandon, he'd love to cut back on the crime-busting. Fate, as usual, has other plans. Heath Pritchard, the incorrigible marijuana grower Quinn's late uncle and predecessor Hamp Beckett locked up 23 years ago, has just been released, and he's eager to horn in on his nephews, dirt-track racers Tyler and Cody Pritchard, who've been carrying on the family business on their own less obtrusive terms. Heath's unforgettable way of announcing his return to his nearest and dearest is to tell them that he needs their help disposing of the remains of Ordeen Davis, whom he caught nosing around on the Pritchard spread. Fannie Hathcock wouldn't have sent Ordeen, her bartender and general factotum at Vienna's Place, the county's premier cathouse, over there in the first place if she hadn't been getting squeezed between the Pritchard boys, who'd been violating a long-standing agreement with her by running way more weed than they could have been raising themselves, and the Dixie Mafia, for whom she's been laundering money and providing other services for years and who now send a pair of hands-on managers to Vienna's Place. The only one who's in a position to do anything about this mess, it seems, is Quinn's old friend Boom Kimbrough, whom DEA agent Nathalie Wilkins is pressing to go undercover at Sutpen Trucking, still another major player in the drug trade. Will Boom last long enough to serve as Quinn's best man?Though it's amusing on its own terms, the constant infighting among lowlifes keeps this installment below Atkins' high standard (The Fallen, 2017, etc.). When bad guys are mostly targeting other bad guys, there's just not that much for good guys to do besides stand aside and watch the carnage.
