Auburn High School, 1701 E Samford Ave., Auburn, Alabama 36830 United States
Atkins graduated from Auburn High School in 1989.
College/University
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States
Atkins attended Auburn University, where he earned a degree in communications in 1994.
Career
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2011
Ace Atkins, author of the book "The Ranger", poses in Oxford, Mississippi on Friday, July 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Bruce Newman)
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2013
Ace Atkins with Richard Howorth, and an author Deborah Johnson.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2013
Ace Atkins and Nathan Buttrey, an interviewer for So Fest of Books.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2013
Ace Atkins is signing many, many copies of both summer novels.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2013
Ace Atkins with the great Joan Parker on FOX Boston morning news.
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2013
Ace Atkins
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2014
Ace Atkins with friends.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2014
Ace Atkins meeting PaulWilliams, American composer, singer, songwriter, and actor.
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2014
La Closerie des Lilas, 171 Boulevard du Montparnasse 75006 Paris, France
Ace Atkins in France.
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2014
Crime novelist Ace Atkins
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2015
Spending time with real life Spenser, private eye David Fechheimer. He now runs vineyard that makes Red Harvest Cab.
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2015
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Ace Atkins at BostonFire for the great welcome on a tough day for local firefighters.
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2015
Ace Atkins is during his 12th annual visit with the students from Birmingham's Altamont School, who read The Ranger and came over to Oxford to eat bbq and talk Southern lit, and also to chop up some hickory wood.
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2015
Down in Water Valley, Mississippi with Jeremiah Chechik.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2015
Ace Atkins with Jon Langford of the Mekons in Oxford. His real personal hero. Talking Dash Hammett and Johnny Cash at a showing of his art.
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2015
Ace Atkins
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2016
Crime novelist Ace Atkins
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2016
Gem Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, United States
Representing Memphis in a "Rocky Mountain Way." Fun hike up to Gem Lake.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2016
Ace Atkins in Mississippi.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2016
Ace Atkins with his friend Sheriff Greg Pollan of Calhoun County, Mississippi.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2016
Mission accomplished. 1000 copies signed of The Innocents before on-sale date of July 12th.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2016
Ace Atkins meets Sue Mingus, widow of towering jazz giant Charles Mingus, in New York City. She is explaining a little about Mingus's practice technique.
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2017
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Crime novelist Ace Atkins is walking in Boston.
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2018
Ace Atkins
Gallery of Ace Atkins
2018
Ace Atkins is at the writing process.
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2018
Ace Atkins presenting his new novel, The Sinners.
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Gallery of Ace Atkins
Starkville Public Library, 326 University Dr, Starkville, Mississippi 39759, United States
Ace Atkins, Photo by Nancy Jacobs.
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Ace Atkins at the Eudora Welty symposium in Columbus, Ms. Photo by Nancy Jacobs.
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Ace Atkins at the Eudora Welty symposium in Columbus, Ms. Photo by Nancy Jacobs.
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Ace Atkins. Photo: Joe Worthem
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Crime novelist Ace Atkins
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Crime novelist Ace Atkins (Photo: Joe Worthem/Special to The Clarion-Ledger).
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Ace Atkins, who grew up in Auburn Alabama, and now lives in Oxford, Mississippi, has written 23 crime novels. His latest, "The Sinners," is the eighth in his continuing series about small-town Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson. (Photo courtesy of Ace Atkins).
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Oxford, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States
Ace Atkins in Oxford with Chris Offutt.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Ace Atkins is a New York Times bestselling author of 23 books, many of which pay homage to his native Alabama and his previous career as a newspaper reporter.
Gallery of Ace Atkins
Ace Atkins is a New York Times bestselling author of 23 books. He is pictured here outside of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, during the release of one of his earlier novels. (Photo by Jay Nolen)
Achievements
Membership
Awards
the Hall-Waters Prize award
2018
At the South at Troy University and the city of Montgomery meeting at the Alabama Book Fest for the Hall-Waters Prize award for Southern fiction. Ace Atkins: "Great to be back in the town where I was born and where my dad, the great Billy Atkins, coached Troy to the NAIA national championship in football in 1968."
Ace Atkins is during his 12th annual visit with the students from Birmingham's Altamont School, who read The Ranger and came over to Oxford to eat bbq and talk Southern lit, and also to chop up some hickory wood.
Ace Atkins meets Sue Mingus, widow of towering jazz giant Charles Mingus, in New York City. She is explaining a little about Mingus's practice technique.
At the South at Troy University and the city of Montgomery meeting at the Alabama Book Fest for the Hall-Waters Prize award for Southern fiction. Ace Atkins: "Great to be back in the town where I was born and where my dad, the great Billy Atkins, coached Troy to the NAIA national championship in football in 1968."
Ace Atkins, who grew up in Auburn Alabama, and now lives in Oxford, Mississippi, has written 23 crime novels. His latest, "The Sinners," is the eighth in his continuing series about small-town Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson. (Photo courtesy of Ace Atkins).
Ace Atkins is a New York Times bestselling author of 23 books, many of which pay homage to his native Alabama and his previous career as a newspaper reporter.
Ace Atkins is a New York Times bestselling author of 23 books. He is pictured here outside of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, during the release of one of his earlier novels. (Photo by Jay Nolen)
(It’s here that we first meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orle...)
It’s here that we first meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orleans Saint turned Tulane University blues historian. Nick searches for the lost recordings of 1930s bluesman Robert Johnson - and a missing colleague - and finds trouble at every turn.
(In the 1950s, Ruby Walker boarded the Illinois Central fr...)
In the 1950s, Ruby Walker boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to the Promised Land - Chicago. 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. She's been locked in a prison cell ever since. Now, a flickering hope emerges for Walker in the form of letters from a Tulane University blues historian named Nick Travers. She agrees to an interview only in exchange for him checking out what she calls the truth behind Lyons's last hours. Travers soon learns there are those who still want the details of Lyons's death to remain hidden in the rubble of the blighted neighborhoods.
(With a precise eye for detail, Atkins takes Nick Travers ...)
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 a close friend were murdered, his life was shattered.
(When music mogul Teddy Paris, a former teammate from the ...)
When music mogul Teddy Paris, a former teammate from the New Orleans Saints, visits Nick Travers and asks him to help find $700,000 taken from a rap prodigy, Nick can't turn down his friend. 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. He sets out with fifteen-year-old rap star, ALIAS, seeking a team of grifters that conned the kid. When a killer hits too close, Nick takes ALIAS with him to the Mississippi Delta for the protection and guidance of Nick's mentor, blues legend JoJo Jackson, and his wife, Loretta. Soon Nick, JoJo, and another old-school Delta tough guy do battle in the Dirty South rap world where money, sex, and murder threaten to take down Paris's empire and destroy ALIAS.
(The death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall - the White Sha...)
The death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall - the White Shadow - has shocked the city, sending cops, reporters, 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. Charlie Wall had his secrets - secrets that if discovered could destroy a criminal empire and ignite a revolution.
(Between September 3-11, 2005, photographer Larry Towell, ...)
Between September 3-11, 2005, photographer Larry Towell, accompanied by Southern novelist Ace Atkins, traveled along the coast of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, documenting the dramatic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Towell's haunting and poetic landscapes - many of them panoramas - depict the devastation and the lives of some of the people hit by it. This is an intimate, documentary record of the hurricane's impact and a tribute to human endurance. For his afterword, Ace Atkins revisited the same scenes six months later, reflecting on if and how the communities of the coast have been able to recover.
(In July 1933, a gangster staged the kidnapping-for-ransom...)
In July 1933, a gangster staged the kidnapping-for-ransom of an Oklahoma oilman. He would live to regret it. What started clean soon turns messy as two of “Machine Gun” Kelly's partners cut themselves into the action, a determined former Texas Ranger makes tracking Kelly his mission, and his wife, ever alert to her own self-interest, starts playing both sides...
(After years of war, Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home...)
After years of war, Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home to the rugged, rough hill country of northeast Mississippi to find his native Tibbehah County overrun with corruption, decay, meth runners, and violence. His uncle, the longtime county sheriff, is dead. A suicide, he’s told, but others - like tomboy deputy Lillie Virgil - whisper murder. In the days that follow, it’s up to Colson to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and himself. And once it’s discovered, there’s no going back for this real hero of the Deep South.
(When Army Ranger Quinn Colson, the new sheriff of Tibbeha...)
When Army Ranger Quinn Colson, the new sheriff of Tibbehah County, is called out to investigate a child abuse case, what he finds is a horrifying scene of neglect, thirteen empty cribs, and a shoe box full of money. Janet and Ramon Torres seem to have skipped town - but Colson’s sure they’ll come back for the cash. Meanwhile, Colson’s sister has returned - clean and sober for good, she says. His friend Boom has been drinking himself into oblivion and picking fights at the local bar. And his old flame is pregnant. But Colson can’t focus on his personal problems.
(When fourteen-year-old Mattie Sullivan asks Spenser to lo...)
When fourteen-year-old Mattie Sullivan asks Spenser to look into her mother’s murder, he’s not convinced by her claim that the wrong man was convicted. Mattie is street-smart, wise beyond her years, and now left to care for her younger siblings and an alcoholic grandmother in a dilapidated apartment in South Boston. But her need for closure and her determination to make things right hits Spenser where he lives.
(A year after becoming a sheriff of Tibbehah County, Missi...)
A year after becoming a sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, Quinn Colson is faced with a pardoned killer’s return to Jericho. Jamey Dixon now preaches redemption and forgiveness, but the family of the woman he was convicted of killing isn’t buying it. They warn Quinn that his sister’s relationship with Dixon could be fatal. Others don’t think a new preacher is a changed man, either - a couple of dangerous convicts who confided in Dixon about an armored car robbery believe he’s after the money they hid. So they do the only thing they can: break out and head straight to Jericho, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
(Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet...)
Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet the old boxing trainer has never asked the private eye for a favor. Until now. A developer is trying to buy up Henry's condo on Revere Beach - with a push from local thugs. Soon Spenser and his apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, are on the trail of a mysterious woman, a megalomaniacal Las Vegas kingpin, and a shady plan to turn a chunk of land north of Boston into a sprawling casino. As alliances shift and twisted dreams surface, the Boston political machine looks to end Spenser's investigation one way or another - and once and for all.
(Kinjo Heywood is one of the New England Patriots’ marquee...)
Kinjo Heywood is one of the New England Patriots’ marquee players - a hard-nosed linebacker who’s earned his standing as one of the toughest guys in the league. He may be worth millions but his connection to a nightclub shooting two years before is still putting a dangerous spin on his life, and his career. When Heywood’s nine-year-old son, Akira, is kidnapped, and a winding trail through Boston’s underworld begins, Spenser puts together his own all-star team of toughs. It will take both Hawk and Spenser’s protégé, Zebulon Sixkill, to watch Spenser’s back. Because Heywood’s next unpredictable move puts everyone in jeopardy as the clock winds down on Akira’s future.
(Thirty-six years ago, a nameless black man wandered into ...)
Thirty-six years ago, a nameless black man wandered into Jericho, Mississippi, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pair of paratrooper boots. Less than two days later, he was accused of rape and murder, hunted down by a self-appointed posse, and lynched. Now evidence has surfaced of his innocence, and county sheriff Quinn Colson sets out not only to identify the stranger’s remains, but to charge those responsible for the lynching. As he starts to uncover old lies and dirty secrets, though, he runs up against fierce opposition from those with the most to lose and they can play dirty themselves.
(Quinn Colson is unemployed - voted out of his position as...)
Quinn Colson is unemployed - voted out of his position as sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi. He has offers in bigger and better places, but before he goes, Colson’s got one more job to do - bring down county kingpin Johnny Stagg’s criminal operations for good. At least that's the plan. But in the middle of the long, hot summer, somebody smashes through the house of a wealthy mill owner, making off with a safe full of money and shooting a deputy. As Deputy Lillie Virgil hunts the criminals and draws Colson in, other people join the chase, too, but with a much more personal motive. For that safe contained more than just money - it held secrets. And as Colson well knows, some secrets can kill.
(The fire at a boarded-up Catholic church raged hot and fa...)
The fire at a boarded-up Catholic church raged hot and fast, lighting up Boston’s South End and killing three firefighters who were trapped in the inferno. A year later, as the city prepares to honor their sacrifice, there are still no answers about how the deadly fire started. Most at the department believe it was just a simple accident: faulty wiring in a century-old building. But Boston firefighter Jack McGee, who lost his best friend in the blaze, suspects arson. McGee is convinced department investigators aren’t sufficiently connected to the city’s lowlifes to get a handle on who's behind the blaze - so he takes the case to Spenser.
(After being voted out of the office and returning to the ...)
After being voted out of the 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 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. Both officers have fought corruption in Tibbehah County before, but the case they must confront now is nothing like they've ever seen.
(Connie Kelly thought she’d found her perfect man on an on...)
Connie Kelly thought she’d found her perfect man on an online dating site. She fell so hard for handsome, mysterious M. Brooks Welles that she wrote him a check for almost three hundred thousand dollars, hoping for a big return on her investment. But within weeks, both Welles and her money are gone. Her therapist, Dr. Susan Silverman, hands her Spenser’s card...
(The bank robbers wreaking havoc across the South are carr...)
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. 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.
(Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into th...)
Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into the black market art scene to investigate a decades-long unsolved crime of dangerous proportions. The heist was legendary, still talked about twenty years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help.
(The Pritchards had never been worth a damn - an evil, gre...)
The Pritchards had never been worth a damn - an evil, greedy family who made their living dealing drugs and committing mayhem. Years ago, Colson's late uncle had put the clan's patriarch in prison, but now he's getting out, with revenge, power, and family business on his mind. To make matters worse, a shady trucking firm with possible ties to the Gulf Coast syndicate has moved into Tibbehah, and they have their own methods of intimidation.
(Twenty years ago, Brandon Taylor was thought to be just a...)
Twenty years ago, Brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teen boy who ended his life too soon. That's what almost everyone in Tibbehah County, Mississippi, said after his body and hunting rifle were found in the Big Woods. Now two New York-based reporters show up asking Sheriff Quinn Colson questions about the Taylor case. What happened to the evidence? Where are the missing files? Who really killed Brandon? Quinn wants to help.
(In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI,...)
In the latest thriller featuring the legendary Boston PI, Spenser heads to the City of Angels to meet old friends and new enemies in a baffling missing person case that might shake Tinseltown to its core. Gabby Leggett left her Boston family with big dreams of making it as a model/actress in Hollywood. Two years later, she disappears from her apartment. Her family, former boyfriend, friends - and the police - have no idea where she is and no leads.
(What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dill...)
What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Mass., where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is tough-as-nails judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about coming down hard on today’s wild youth.
(When crime-fighting attorney Albert Patterson is gunned d...)
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. 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.
(Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his s...)
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. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her - crushed her under his weight - and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict. In desperation, Arbuckle's defense team hires an operative from the famed Pinkerton detective agency to investigate and, they hope, discover the truth.
(The story shows Nick at his best: in New Orleans, at JoJo...)
The story shows Nick at his best: in New Orleans, at JoJo's Blues Bar, helping an old friend, challenging the powerful, and getting in way over his head.
Ace Atkins is an American journalist and a prolific writer. He is the New York Times Bestselling author of nineteen novels, including The Innocents and Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn, both out from G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 2016. One of the best crime writers working today, Ace has been nominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar three times, twice for novels about former United States Army Ranger Quinn Colson.
Background
Ace Atkins was born in Troy, Alabama, on June 28, 1970. The son of the late Auburn legend Billy "Ace" Atkins and his wife, Doris, Ace was around football from the time he took his first steps as a toddler. Billy Atkins had picked up the nickname "Ace" during his playing days at Auburn, and when their son was born, Billy and Doris named their boy William Ellis Atkins Jr. From birth, though, everybody called him "Ace."
His father was on the 1957 National Championship team and became a professional football coach, and so Atkins's family moved around a lot with his job with the NFL. They were moving around from Buffalo to San Francisco to Detroit to St. Louis to Atlanta before they came back to Auburn, where Ace attended high school.
Education
Atkins graduated from Auburn High School in 1989 and then attended Auburn University, where he majored in communications with an emphasis on writing for radio, television, and film, earning a degree in 1994. He played football while at Auburn and was a member of the 1993 undefeated Auburn University football team. Between football practices and team meetings, Ace immersed himself in writing courses and literature classes at Auburn. He even took an introductory typing course to learn to type. An English professor at Auburn, Marian Carcache, also introduced Atkins to the strange and wonderful Southern Gothic literature of Flannery O'Connor.
After his graduation from Auburn in 1994, Atkins began his career as a reporter on the crime beat at the Tampa Tribune before he published his first novel, Crossroad Blues, in 1998. He became a full-time novelist at the age of 30. While at the Tribune, Atkins earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for a feature series based on his investigation into a forgotten murder of the 1950s. The story became the core of his critically acclaimed novel, White Shadow, which was commented on positively by noted authors and critics.
Ace Atkins published a Nick Travers novel called Dirty South in 2004. Also in 2004, he was a speaker at the Welty Symposium at MUW in Columbus, Mississippi. Using his experiences as a reporter for the Tampa Tribune, Atkins wrote White Shadow, which was published May 4, 2006. It is a fictionalized story of the unsolved murder in 1955 of the real-life Tampa crime boss Charlie Wall, whose nickname “the white shadow” is the title of the book. Wall’s murder occurs at the beginning of the book when he is an old man, and Detective Ed Dodge and a Tampa reporter search Tampa and Havana (before Castro) for the killer. The novel is set in Florida in the 1950s. Atkins then published Devil’s Garden (2009), Infamous (2010), The Ranger (A Quinn Colson Novel) 2012, The Lost Ones (A Quinn Colson Novel) 2012, Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby (Spenser) 2012, The Broken Places (A Quinn Colson Novel), May 30, 2013, and Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland (2013).
Atkins covered Hurricane Katrina for Outside magazine, Hurricane Ivan for Newsweek magazine, and has an essay in the September 2007 issue of an Outside magazine called “Shut Up About My Truck.” His work is included in two anthologies: They Write Among Us, 2003, and New Orleans Noir, 2007.
Since 2013 he has published The Broken Places (A Quinn Colson novel, Book 3) May 1, 2014; Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot (Spenser, Book 3) May 6, 2014; The Forsaken (A Quinn Colson novel) July 24, 2014; Robert B. Parker’s Kickback (Spenser Book 28) by Ace Atkins, May 19, 2015; and The Redeemers (A Quinn Colson Novel Book 5) July 2015; Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn (Spenser) May, 2016; and The Innocents (A Quinn Colson Novel) July 2016.
In 2016 also published Nick Travers Volume 1: Last Fair Deal Gone Down Graphic Novel, the first in a series of graphic novel adaptations to be published by 12-Gauge Comics.
Atkins now lives near Oxford, Mississippi, after being offered a job as a visiting professor in journalism at the University of Mississippi (Brown), and he spends his time writing in his farmhouse outside Oxford with his dogs, Elvis, and Polk Salad Annie and several others, when he is not teaching at Ole Mississippi. Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national magazines including Outside and Garden & Gun.
(Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his s...)
Views
As a former, and still occasional, journalist, Atkins is always looking to current events for story ideas. He wrote four novels based heavily on historic crimes. And all six of his Quinn Colson books were inspired partly by things that happened either in Mississippi or the South, from a horrific child trafficking case to a catastrophic tornado.
Quotations:
“My kind of thing was I would write anything the paper would throw out to me,” Atkins said. “I was just very hungry.”
"I’ve been writing fiction for almost 20 years and I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. Some come in and think they’ve published that one book and have it made. But it’s a crazy, tough business. Unless you’ve written "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Catcher in the Rye," you really can’t retire. You’ve got to keep on moving, thinking about the next thing."
“A lot of the big national best-sellers you see are often concentrated on international affairs and things happening overseas. I find that we have just as many stories about corruption, social evils and things happening in our own backyard down South that we want to write about. That’s what inspired the books - looking in our own backyard at things that need to be addressed on a local level.”
"Auburn has always been my hometown, even before going to high school there," he says. "My grandparents lived there, and my aunt and uncle lived there. My dad could have been coaching for the St. Louis Cardinals, but during Christmastime or summertime, we were always going back to Lee County, going back to Auburn."
Personality
Atkins was greatly influenced by classic westerns, classic crime novels, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, the movie "Shane". Also, he is a big fan of blues and Elvis Presley. Atkins also cites the influence of blues legends Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters on his work. Atkins himself describes his novels as “a cross-pollination of hard-boiled detective stories with southern music.”
Interests
traveling, hiking
Writers
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler
Sport & Clubs
football
Music & Bands
Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters
Connections
Ace lives on a historic farm outside Oxford, Mississippi with his family.