Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Book Report: Dirty South by Ace Atkins

Dirty South is the fourth novel in the Nick Travers series. Nick Travers is an ex Saint football player turned music history professor at Tulane. He fills in his spare time by doing investigatory favors for people a la Travis McGee. In this case, he is helping an old team mate and rap music producer track down money that was stolen from him and his newest teenage rap star, ALIAS. Dirty South is a reference to his style of rap music and the novel takes you on a tour of the seamy side of the music industry in New Orleans.

If you like the writing style of James Lee Burke, with his earthy descriptions of the south, you will like Ace Atkins. His depictions of New Orleans are colorfully vivid and geographically accurate. You can almost smell the funk of the French Quarter coming off the pages.

Ace Atkins has written a total of nine novels. Four are the Nick Travers series. He has also written four "historical faction" novels dealing with actual crimes from the 20's, 30's and 50's. His latest novel, The Ranger, is set is present day Mississippi.

It's only a matter of time before someone decides to buy the movie rights to some of his work.

And here's the lagniappe: Ace Atkins has been chosen by Robert Parker's Estate and publisher to continue writing the Spenser series.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Interesting, I'll check em out! Thanks!