Ace Atkins Books in Order

Nick Travers, a former Saint turned blues historian, goes looking for lost Robert Johnson recordings and a missing colleague. The search drags him through the Delta toward killers, hustlers, and old legends that refuse to stay buried.

A legendary Chicago blues singer in prison wants Nick Travers to uncover the truth behind her lover’s long-ago murder. What starts as an interview turns into a trip through old grudges, music history, and fresh danger.

Nick Travers goes looking for a vanished soul singer tied to one of his closest friends. The trail runs from New Orleans to Tunica and into a mess of politics, racism, and a killer obsessed with Elvis.

When an old teammate asks Nick Travers to recover money stolen from a young rap star, the job looks simple for about five minutes. Soon Nick is up against gangsters, hustlers, and a widening Southern turf war.

In 1955 Tampa, the murder of aging crime boss Charlie Wall shakes a city built on vice, favors, and fear. Atkins turns the unsolved killing into a dark, grounded portrait of old Florida corruption.

After reform lawyer Albert Patterson is gunned down in 1954 Phenix City, a vice-soaked Alabama town starts to crack open. What follows is a hard, violent cleanup fight against people who have owned the place for years.

A wild party at San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel leaves a young actress dead and Roscoe Arbuckle facing ruin. Atkins turns the infamous scandal into a fast, dirty story about fame, booze, and public hysteria.

Machine Gun Kelly’s 1933 kidnapping plot starts neatly and goes bad in a hurry. Atkins follows the ransom case through gangland mistakes, a scheming wife, and the rough early days of the modern FBI.

Army Ranger Quinn Colson comes home to north Mississippi and finds his county rotting from the inside. With his uncle, the sheriff, dead under suspicious circumstances, Quinn is pulled into a fight he cannot avoid.

It’s Christmas in New Orleans, and Nick Travers is hunting the truth behind a musician friend’s death. What looks like a suicide starts to unravel once a missing saxophone and the wrong people enter the picture.

When tough South Boston teenager Mattie Sullivan asks Spenser to reopen her mother’s murder, he expects a dead end. Instead he finds a buried case, the wrong man in prison, and enemies who want the past left alone.

Sheriff Quinn Colson answers a child abuse call and finds a house of horrors, empty cribs, and missing suspects. The deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes that trafficking and cartel violence are closing in on Jericho.

A favor for old boxing trainer Henry Cimoli pulls Spenser into a crooked redevelopment fight on Revere Beach. The trail runs through dirty cops, big money, and the ghost of Wonderland itself.

A pardoned killer comes back to Jericho preaching redemption, but not everyone believes him. Then escaped convicts, hidden robbery money, and a tornado turn Quinn Colson’s county into open hunting ground.

When football star Kinjo Heywood is targeted off the field, Spenser is hired to look into the threats. The case turns brutal when Heywood’s young son is kidnapped and Boston’s underworld closes in.

New evidence suggests a Black man lynched decades earlier in Jericho was innocent, and Quinn Colson starts digging. The case wakes up old lies, old power, and enough fear to get Quinn framed himself.

A teenager lands in a harsh juvenile facility over a school prank, and his mother asks Spenser for help. What looks petty soon opens onto judges, private prisons, and money changing hands behind the law.

Voted out as sheriff, Quinn Colson plans one last push against Tibbehah County’s criminal machine. Then a violent break-in and a stolen safe full of secrets drag him back into a chase with deadly stakes.

A deadly church fire still haunts Boston a year later, and firefighter Jack McGee thinks it was arson. Spenser follows the trail into the city’s underworld as new fires begin to spread.

Back in Jericho after a stint overseas, Quinn Colson wants to keep clear of the county’s mess. Family trouble, old love, and the pull of the badge make that impossible, and corruption is still waiting where he left it.

A woman conned out of a fortune by a fake military expert sends Spenser after a man who may not even exist. The hunt leads from Boston to rural Georgia, with Hawk close behind.

A crew of highly skilled bank robbers is tearing across Mississippi, and Quinn Colson recognizes their methods. To stop them, he has to match military precision against criminals who may know his playbook as well as he does.

A hint that stolen paintings from a famous Boston museum may still exist sends Spenser into the black-market art world. Old mob grudges, big money, and double crosses make the cold case anything but cold.

A vicious family of drug-dealing troublemakers resurfaces just as Quinn Colson is heading toward his wedding. Between prison grudges, a shady trucking firm, and fresh violence, Tibbehah County is ready to explode.

Spenser heads to Los Angeles to find a missing aspiring actress who vanished after chasing Hollywood dreams. With Sixkill beside him, he runs into studio power, the Armenian mob, and a dangerous cultlike group.

An old teenage death comes roaring back when outside reporters start asking questions and Quinn Colson ends up under suspicion. At the same time, a dangerous gubernatorial candidate is stirring up fresh trouble across Mississippi.

Mattie Sullivan is older now and learning the trade from Spenser when a teenage girl’s assault case lands on her desk. The search for a stolen bag opens into a powerful trafficking ring with global reach.

Recovering from an attempt on his life, Quinn Colson comes back looking for payback and justice. With friends scattered and enemies thriving, he gears up for a final showdown against the power structure that tried to bury him.

Teenager TJ Byrd goes on the run after her troubled mother is killed and the whole county decides she did it. Quinn Colson believes she is being set up, but finding her first will not be easy.

Congresswoman Carolina Garcia-Ramirez brushes off the threats that come with a heated campaign, but Spenser is not so sure. As election season turns ugly, he and Hawk uncover a deadly extremist plot.

Addison McKellar’s husband disappears, and the life she thought she knew starts coming apart fast. With Memphis PI Porter Hayes, she uncovers a dangerous web of lies, mercenaries, and international intrigue.

Two broke Florida journalists take a paid trip to Havana to recover an old man’s hidden valuables. The job comes with a glamorous guide, a bad map, and the strong sense that everyone is lying.

In 1985 Atlanta, fourteen-year-old Peter Bennett is sure his mom’s new boyfriend is a Soviet spy. He might be right, and soon the whole thing turns into a funny, fast Cold War thriller with very real stakes.

A late-night call sends Nick Travers into the French Quarter to find a missing teenage girl before sunrise. What starts as a search quickly turns into a kidnapping case with money, panic, and killers in the mix.

This short Quinn Colson story drops back into Tibbehah County, where even a small problem can twist into something mean and dangerous. It is a quick return to the series’ rough, tense Mississippi world.

Jason Colson, Quinn’s retired stuntman father, is trying to coast through a public appearance in Austin when a mobster shows up to collect a debt. Bad knees, old mistakes, and family pride make for a rough night.

Ace Atkins revisits his old newspaper investigation into the 1956 killing of Tampa socialite Edy Parkhill. The case opens onto a darker map of old Florida, where money, mob power, and silence kept the truth buried.