The Fallen by Ace Atkins., guest review

This book goes down like an ice cold lager on an infernally hot day. If you like your men tough and your women even tougher take yourself down the hot dusty roads of Mississippi to experience a decent, straight talking Sherriff taking on dangerous brothel madams, former armed forces colleagues, slick criminals and crooked politicians. Or, as the author puts it “It´s just getting good, Lil”, he said. “Everything we have been fighting for. All those people who want to turn back the clock to the bad ole days. The users, the racists, the peckerheads who praise Jesus but loot our land and people. We got ´em”.

But does he? Or is his colleague the sharp shooting Lillie right when she says, “It´s over, kemosabe”. “Those fuckers had us beat before we even got started.” To find out you will just have to dive into ´The Fallen´ and take yourself to Jericho, Mississippi.

Ace Atkins, an American journalist nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, is now a full-time crime writer who lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Corsair an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group

(Sylvia Campbell)