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From the acclaimed, award-winning author comes an extraordinary new series about a real hero, and the real Deep South.
"With terrific, inflected characters, and a dark, subtle sense of place and history, The Ranger is an exceptional novel." -John Sandford
"One of the best crime writers at work today." -Michael Connelly
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 the truth is discovered, there is no turning back.
Home is the Ranger, home from the wars, to a town full of good old boys, bad old betrayals and some fresh ones.
Quinn Colson has been gone from Jericho in deep-south Mississippi since he was a rambunctious, trouble-prone kid. Gone but not forgotten. An 18-year-old hell-raiser, he'd left behind an indelible string of colorful exploits. He's 29 now, a mission-tested, combat-scarred veteran of all his country's recent wars. Quinn's a Ranger sergeant, an elite soldier, complete with a fighting man's stare and recognizable haircut. On a week's emergency furlough from Fort Benning, he's headed home for a favorite uncle's funeral, the uncle who also happened to be the much-admired, frequently reelected Tibbehah County sheriff, the uncle who has allegedly taken his own life. Hamp Beckett a suicide? Hard for Quinn to accept, and yet there's the note, cryptic, perhaps, but convincing. In addition, there's Acting Sheriff Wesley Ruth, with whom Quinn played high-school football, expounding on the darker aspects of a secretive, skillfully sublimated nature. On the other hand, there's Deputy Lillie Virgil, holding a dissenting view, which she maintains the on-scene evidence supports, though no one, including Quinn at first, seems in any way persuaded. In all, he soon has much on his plate, including issues with a vicious, unprincipled longtime enemy, a savage crew of no-holds-barred meth dealers and, oh yes, a gorgeous ex-girlfriend currently married to someone else who, despite that, might be disinclined to remain history. Hardly Iraq or Afghanistan revisited, but, as agendas clash, the body count mounts, and suddenly Quinn finds himself fighting battles all over Jericho.
Another solid entertainment from Atkins (Infamous, 2010, etc.), whose estimable Ranger may bring to mind Lee Child's hard-fisted, soft-hearted Jack Reacher, which is entirely a good thing.
Ace Atkins is the author of White Shadow, Wicked City, Devil's Garden, and four Nick Travers novels. He lives on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi.
PoCoKat
Posted May 28, 2011
I am so thrilled to discover another amazing author. Ace Atkins is brilliant in portraying the corruption in modern day northeast Mississippi. The Ranger, Quinn Colson, a career army soldier returns home for the first time in six years to attend his beloved uncle's funeral. He immediately senses the changes in his hometown of Jericho not just with the newcomers but with people he has known all his life. But then how well do we really know those around us.
Quinn Colson acts quickly to stabilize and eliminate the corruption that has overtaken Jericho in the years since he has been gone. It is action packed and full of twists and turns. It was hard to put this book down. This poverty-stricken area of the south which provided the dark, gritty background filled with contemptuous characters made for an amazing combination perfect for our hero, The Ranger.
I highly recommend this exciting crime thriller and am looking forward to more of my new hero, Quinn Colson's adventures in Jericho, Mississippi.
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Sicilian
Posted August 2, 2011
This is the second Ace Atkins book that I've read and I'm anxious to read the follow up on The Ranger. I could "feel" the south by the descriptions and felt like I knew The Ranger. Ace Atkins writes the particular genre that I'm drawn to but definately has his own voice.
Mr. Atkins is also going to be writing the Spenser character in a new book sanctioned by Robert B. Parker's family. With the Parker family seal of approval, you know he's got to be good.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.On duty in Afghanistan U.S. Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home to Jericho, Mississippi to attend the funeral of his beloved role model Uncle Hampton Beckett. Quinn is stunned when he arrives home to learn his uncle the town's former sheriff committed suicide.
Long time friend Deputy Lillie Virgil rejects the notion that Hampton shot himself. She believes he was murdered. Knowing Lillie is not a person to pull punches, Quinn makes inquiries into his uncle's death only to find official and unofficial opposition. He learns that while he was serving his country, meth deals own Jericho. Though threatened with violence, Quinn with Lillie covering his back fights the drug dealers and corrupt officials closing their eyes on chemical cooking.
This is an exciting violent homecoming filled with non stop action as Quinn finds Mississippi burning as much as Afghanistan. Fast-paced though following the classic theme of a lone cowboy cleaning up a corrupt outlaw town (see Bronson's Mr. Majestyk and Ladd's Shane), the freshness comes from a subplot in which Quinn muses about what he would be if he never left Mississippi. Readers will not be able to put down Colson's return to Jericho.
Harriet Klausner
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.tedfeit0
Posted November 14, 2012
Quinn Colson first appeared in “The Ranger,” and now, in this follow-up novel, faces a couple of situations that really put him to the test. As sheriff in a northern Mississippi county, he has to apply not only the skills he learned in the army, but a lot of common sense and a certain amount of diplomatic talent.
First, a high school friend recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan now runs a local gun shop and shooting range. Colson suspects him to be the source of U.S. Army rifles which turn up in the hands of a Mexican gang. Meanwhile, a case involving an abused child leads Colson to discovering a bootleg baby racket. While raiding the place where the babies are being kept before they’re sold, Colson and his deputy, Lillie Virgil, discover that the two cases somehow converge.
As the investigation progresses, lots of action takes place, sometimes reminding the reader of an actual military operation, led by General Colson, rather than sheriff Colson. The characters are colorfully drawn, and the dialogue is vibrant. The novel is sort of a cross between an old-fashioned western and a modern day crime novel and reads well, and is recommended.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Quinn Colson, the eponymous protagonist, has returned home to Tibbehah County, in rural northeast Mississippi, to attend the funeral of his beloved uncle. He is told that his uncle committed suicide, but refuses to accept that. In trying to uncover the truth, he discovers much more than just what the former sheriff had been up to in the months leading up to his death.
Quinn is a man of many talents and skills who had joined the Army when he was eighteen. The author says of him: “The Regiment had whittled him down to a wiry, muscular frame built for speed, surprise, chaos, and violence . . . .He had a Choctaw grandmother about a hundred years back mixed with the hard Scotch-Irish who settled the South.” He has not been home for six years, is now a platoon sergeant with the Rangers, having done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and back again. He returns home to find a town that had seen hard times, getting harder, and a bunch of good ol’ boys spreading drugs, money and corruption wherever and whenever they can. The town is perhaps typified by the following: “Nobody has real names out here. We’re all just kind of passing through until we can get to Memphis or Jackson,” and a chancery clerk at the Courthouse whose “job was elected, but unless you ran away with half the county’s budget or performed an intimate act in public you could pretty much keep the job as long as you wanted it.”
All the action - - and there is a lot of it - - takes places over a one-week period, the time frame allowed to Quinn for his bereavement leave from the Army. There is a recurring theme of lost young women and the families - - and babies - - they leave behind. And finally the inevitable showdown that you knew had to be coming, but that packs a punch nonetheless, with some plot developments that perhaps should have been expected but were not, at least for this reader.
I have to admit that this was my first Ace Atkins book. It is one which is recommended, and I am looking forward to the next one. [He has written four standalones, plus four books in the Nick Travers series, and, recently, “The Lost Ones,” a sequel to “The Ranger.” In addition, the author was selected by the Robert B. Parker estate to continue the Spenser series, the first of which, titled, aptly enough, “Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby,” was also published in the past few months.]
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 30, 2012
It takes a while to solve the mystery.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 6, 2012
I have found a new series !
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 1, 2012
perfect book for the beach,plane or train.
action packed & a page turner.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 10, 2012
great characters, great dialogue,
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 2, 2012
The story was thin and disconnected. Must be written for men who like to swear and punch around alot.
sorry, I know he has lots of books, but not for women, thats for sure
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 23, 2012
I loved this book! I definitely recommend it. I am currently reading the next book in the series.
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Overview
From the acclaimed, award-winning author comes an extraordinary new series about a real hero, and the real Deep South.
"With terrific, inflected characters, and a dark, subtle sense of place and history, The Ranger is an exceptional novel." -John Sandford
"One of the best crime writers at work today." -Michael Connelly
Ace Atkins returns with an extraordinary new series. Northeast Mississippi, hill country, rugged and notorious for outlaws ...