UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
Ace Atkins
Also known as: Ace Atkins (author)
Ace Atkins (born June 28, 1970) is an American journalist and author. He became a full-time novelist at the age of 30.
Group psychotherapy, like the human life cycle, has its universal ongoing themes punctuated by periods of intense emotionality, crisis, regression and transformation.
— from Ring of fire
Most acclaimed
Infamous
It's Thanksgiving break at exclusive Waverly Academy, and everybody's feeling thankful . . . for the long weekend. New BFFs Jenny Humphrey and Tinsley Carmichael are determined to snap their glum but still uberstylish roomie Callie Vernon out of her funk-it's been weeks since her boyfriend Easy Walsh was kicked out of school, and they're sick of her moping. The plan: head to NYC for some R & R! And some SS (serious shopping).But the girls quickly discover that a quiet holiday is not in store for them. A cozy Thanksgiving dinner turns into a three-day party with a few of their classmates-and some irresistible mystery guests. Jenny meets Mr. Right but is determined not to fall in love for the fourth time this fall. Tinsley has her own holiday mission: to win back adorable freshman Julian McCafferty. And Callie is holding out for Easy . . . which is hard to do with a cute college boy following her around. Brett Messerschmidt is missing in action-forced to spend Thanksgiving in her family's tacky Jersey McMansion. But drama's on the menu at the dinner table. And maybe love too.Forget turkey and stuffing. When you're an It Girl, a holiday is just anotherexcuse to break out the bubbly.
Wicked city
From "one of crime fiction's most interesting and passionate voices" (Laura Lippman) comes a new "noir crime classic" (Mystery Ink) about one of the most notorious towns in American history. Reviewing White Shadow, the Associated Press wrote, "It is as gritty as James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. And yet, the prose is as lyrical as James Lee Burke's Crusader's Cross. With White Shadow, Atkins has found his true voice." And with Wicked City, it is even truer. In 1955, Look magazine called Phenix City, Alabama, "The Wickedest City in America," but even that may have been an understatement. It was a stew of organized crime and corruption, run by a machine that dealt with complaints forcefully and with dispatch. No one dared cross them-no one even tried. And then the machine killed the wrong man. When crime-fighting attorney Albert Patterson is gunned down in a Phenix City alley in the spring of 1954, the entire town seems to pause just for a moment- and when it starts up again, there is something different about it. A small group of men meet and decide that they have had enough, but what that means and where it will take them is something they could not have foreseen. Over the course of the next several months, lives will change, people will die, and unexpected heroes will emerge-like "a Randolph Scott western," one of them remarks, "played out not with horses and Winchesters but with Chevys and .38s and switchblades." Peopled by an extraordinary cast of characters, both real and fictional, Wicked City is a novel of uncommon intensity-rich with atmosphere and filled with sensuality and surprise.**
The fallen
Amos Decker and his journalist friend Alex Jamison are visiting the home of Alex's sister in Barronville, a small town in western Pennsylvania that has been hit hard economically. When Decker is out on the rear deck of the house talking with Alex's niece, a precocious eight-year-old, he notices flickering lights and then a spark of flame in the window of the house across the way. When he goes to investigate he finds two dead bodies inside and it's not clear how either man died. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on in Barronville that might be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country. Faced with a stonewalling local police force, and roadblocks put up by unseen forces, Decker and Jamison must pull out all the stops to solve the case. And even Decker's infallible memory may not be enough to save them.