Dark End of the Street

by Ace Atkins

Book Overview

Hired to track down a friend's lost brother, Nick Travers finds himself in the casinos of Tucina, where he meets up with the local mafia, a zealous gubernatorial candidate with shady connections, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060004606
• ISBN13: 9780060004606
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Don't let your personal politics fool you...

Whether one is a dyed-in-the-wool Southern liberal like me or a conservative like my fellow reviewer from Savannah (see below), this book resonates. One should not let one's personal politics get in the way of recognizing that Atkins is one of the best thriller writers of his generation. Actually, if he continues to improve, he'll be one of the best writers of his generation, regardless of genre. To insinuate that he employs a "plastic construction of unbelievable characters" is absolutely ludicrous. The plot of Dark End of the Street is nuanced, its characters completely based in reality and richly realized. Here in Mississippi, my friends at all ends of the political spectrum loved this book for its ability to bring our home to life, in all its wounded glory. In Dark End of the Street, I see the abiding love all Southerners, black or white, have for this region as well as the deep-rooted shame of slavery and racial oppression that still permeates the landscape. Many people will never understand the dichotomy of the modern South. Ace Atkins does. READ THIS BOOK.

Rewarding adventure--blues, the south, & murder

Music historian Nick Travers tracks down legendary blues musicians for a living so he isn't too surprised when his friend Loretta asks him to find her brother--except that her brother has been rumored to be dead for years. Still, Nick can't turn down a request from Loretta and heads from New Orleans to Memphis where Clyde James had last been seen. What he finds in Memphis, though, is a woman being held captive, recent murder, and a political campaign with Dixie Mafia money coming out the seams. Nick will have to call on more than music detection skills to survive this mess--let alone help things come out right. Author Ace Atkins writes convincingly of an American south where the old and new rest uneasily with one another, where race relations are personal, and where dreams of the confederacy still motivate men to arm and train. Atkin's characterization is rich and full. In addition to Nick, the sociopathic Perfect Leigh and Jesse Garon are especially well drawn and fascinating. The rich background of the blues, of southern cooking, of friendship, and of the quiet desperation that marks so many lives makes DARK END OF THE STREET feel terribly authentic. There is a lot going on in this novel--as Nick slams from trouble to trouble, barely ahead of a bullet. At times, the plotting can get a little confused. At other times, Nick's plots might be a little too cute. Still, Atkins's strong writing can make even the most unlikely plot turns feel natural. Watch out because DARK END can grab you by the throat and kick you in the rear.

An Ace!!!

I agree with Elmore Leonard, who, on the jacket of DARK END OF THE STREET, says that Ace Atkins is an ace of a writer. This novel is a riveting page-turner of the first magnitude that also dazzled me with its fine writing and wonderful characterizations.

Song of the South

Dirty doings down below the Mason/Dixon line are to be expected in this genre. Some cornpone authors have made excellent livings convincing us that southerners are more colorful than regular folk. You and me, that is.Speaking as a northener who's never been south of Washington DC,I usually go along with this conceit while barely concealing an indulgent smile.Ace Atkins new book, DARK END OF THE STREET has snapped the smile off my face. You know what? Southerners ARE more colorful.At least in the world Atkins has illuminated. Guided by his shining prose and dead on deadpan delivery, we enter.Wetting our toes, oh so carefully, in Mississippi mud.Atkins' creation is Nick Travers, a professor at Tulane who spends an inordinate amount of time 'recording oral histories or hunting information on long-lost or dead musicians......crisscrossing the Delta or Chicago or parts of Texas searching for hundred-year-old-birth certificates or trying to find folks who'd rather stay hidden.' As Travers says, "I was what you'd call a blues tracker."An intriguing profession for an intriguing character.Here, in a book I understand is deeper and darker than his previous two Nick Travers outings, Atkins takes us on a moodyjourney through the troubled past of one of the those long-lost souls, blues singer Clyde James.As a favor to James' sister Loretta, a woman to whom Travers is emotionally in debt, he sets off to dig up the buried past.Unfortunately, he isn't the only one digging.Along for the ride are a pill popping hired killer with delusions of Elvis grandeur. A beautiful chameleon of a con artist with a murderous heart.A young girl searching for her parents killers. A good old boy crime boss with no conscience and no scruples. A vile politician with a hideous secret.The Dixie Mafia, an assortment of tough guys, freaks, geeks, gamblers and as if that weren't enough, a 'whites only' organization of gun toting zealots dedicated to the glorious rise of the old south. I loved this bluesy, frowzy, mood indigo of a book.

Blues, not jazz!

...Nick Travers is a BLUES historian, not jazz. They are definitely not the same thing, unless you think Miles Davis sounds like Robert Johnson.Not that you have to know anything about music to thoroughly enjoy this book. Ace Atkins is destined for greatness, and not just in the thriller genre. His writing continues to improve with every outing -- Dark End of the Street is his best yet. Dark, quirky, funny as hell. I want to meet Nick Travers.