Review: The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (May 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399158766
• ISBN-13: 978-0399158766

Book Description

 Fresh from ten years as a U.S. Army Ranger, Quinn Colson finds his hands full as the newly elected sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi.  An old buddy running a local gun shop may be in over his head when stolen army rifles start showing up in the hands of a Mexican drug gang.

At the same time, an abused-child case leads Quinn and his tough-as-nails deputy, Lillie Virgil, deep into the heart of a bootleg baby racket and a trail of darkness and death. And when the two cases collide, Quinn and his allies are forced to realize that, though they may be home from the war, they are now in the fight of their lives.


About the Author

 Ace Atkins, a former journalist, has written ten previous novels. Most recently, Atkins published The Ranger, the Edgar-nominated first novel in the Quinn Colson series, and was selected by the Robert B. Parker Estate to continue the highly popular Spenser series with Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby.

 Atkins began his writing career in 1998, at age twenty-eight, when the first of four Nick Travers novels was published. In 2001, he earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his investigation into a 1950s murder. That murder inspired his 2006 novel White Shadow, which was followed by three further history-based crime novels—Wicked City, Devil’s Garden, and Infamous. Atkins lives in Oxford, Mississippi.


My Review

My introduction to author Ace Atkins was with The Ranger which was an incredible read.  The Lost Ones is the second book in the series.   And an excellent addition to the series it is.

Freshly returned from a decade of active duty in the Middle East, Quinn Colson is now the Sheriff of Tibbehah County in northeastern Mississippi.  In some ways time has forgotten this corner of the south but in other ways it is well into the twenty-first century.  The story revolves around Mexicans and gun running.  And how these two things have brought chaos to Tibbehah.

Quinn's sister has returned once again and this time we are given an insight into how she became the lost soul she has become.  She is not the only lost one in this well written novel by Ace Atkins.

I'm looking forward to more Quinn Colson in the future.  Well written, timely novel of the new south.  Ace Atkins is making his name as a crime writer to watch.