Despite feeling a little old as he faces his future as
Instructor at Fort Benning instead of direct
operations, 29-year-old Quinn Colson still looked, even in
civvies, the battle hardened Ranger he had been in
Afghanistan, right from his regulation haircut to how he
surveys the environment around him. He had been away from
his hometown in Jericho,
Mississippi for almost ten years and was now on a week's
leave to attend the funeral for his favorite uncle,
Hampton Beckett, the Sheriff of Tibbehah County. Shocked
to hear that his uncle had committed suicide, Quinn doesn't
immediately accept the opinion of his good friend and now
Deputy, Lillie Virgil, as she implies that the evidence was
not properly handled and that it may not have been a
suicide. But, when Johnny Swagg, a corrupt and ambitious
glad-handing politician, sends some good old boys to take
his uncle's property and cattle from him, Quinn soon finds
more action in the deep south than he had on any of his
previous missions.
Despite rough riding through the backroads and old lumber
trails of Mississippi with a handy cold six pack beside
him, Quinn just can't lose himself from the pervasive
corruption, backstabbing (including some old childhood
friends he thought he could count on), environmental
damage from land developers and the whole hypocritical
morass that has overtaken his childhood world. Just like a
bloodhound on the trail, Quinn just can't let things be and
is determined to get to the bottom of what happened to his
uncle. Hamp had not abandoned him when he was a kid lost
in the woods and he wasn't going to leave before finding
out what is really going on. But when his relentless
snooping turns over some rotten leaves, he stirs up a
vicious hornet's nest of good olde boys, drug dealing,
meth manufacturing, land grabbing and linkages with a
greedy preacher that soon has him square in the crosshairs
of too many guns and fighting more dangerous enemies
than he ever faced before.
Best-selling author Ace Atkins has garnered huge acclaim
for his previous books and with Quinn Colson as a new hero,
he is sure to gain even more fans. Quinn is the
quintessential Ranger, kind-hearted and sometimes
protective of women and animals, yet totally action-
oriented and ready to take on the odds when needed.
Riveting right from the get go, Atkins masterfully sets up
a fictional town and cast of characters that authentically
describe and reflect the rural underworld and flaccid
underbelly of the deep south, right from the poverty of
the bottom feeding hanger-ons to those in positions of
power and authority. Particularly powerful and poignant
is the trust and loyalty Quinn has for his best friend,
Boom, a Black soldier who lost an arm overseas in battle
and now survives in near poverty but still very skilled.
Without expounding the point, Atkins highlights the plight
of many returning injured vets seeking to regain a place in
the society they fought hard to defend. I sure hope there
are lots more Quinn Colson books to come in this series!
Dive in and relish!
Ace Atkins returns with an extraordinary new series.
Northeast Mississippi, hill country, rugged and notorious
for outlaws since the Civil War, where killings are as
commonplace as in the Old West. To Quinn Colson, it’s
home—but not the home he left when he went to Afghanistan.
Now an Army Ranger, he returns to a place overrun by corruption,
and finds his uncle, the county sheriff, dead—a
suicide, he’s told, but others whisper murder. In the days
that follow, it will be up to Colson to discover the truth,
not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends,
his town, and not least about himself. And once discovered,
there is no turning
back.
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