Customer Reviews

Dark End of the Street

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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.

In this 3rd book in the Nick Travers series, Ace Atkins sends his blues historian to Memphis and incorporates a little soul into his series. One night while sitting in his long-time friend Jojo's bar, Jojo's wife Loretta drags Travers aside to ask him to find her brother for her. She had recently received a visit from a couple of men looking for him and wanted to make sure he was alright. However, the word was that her brother, broken down soul legend Clyde Jones had died recently in Memphis where he had been living as a homeless shell of a man. No one could confirm Clyde's death for him when Travers asked around, in fact, his questions made some people downright uncomfortable.

Meanwhile in Tunica a young woman by the name of Abby who is still trying to come to grips with the murder of her father and mother is being stalked by Perfect Leigh. Perfect works for Levi Ransom a member of the Dixie mafia and a very dangerous man. Abby is eventually captured and is in the process of being interrogated, none too gently, when Nick's path crosses hers in dramatic circumstances, immediately casting him as her knight in shining armor and Ransom's bitter enemy.

The story quickly progresses from a missing person's case to a fight for survival as Nick gets caught between the Dixie mafia and a white supremist group who call themselves the Sons of the South. Apart from a small continuity problem towards the end where we seemed to jump from scene to scene without any logical reason, this is another enthralling music-base mystery.

Ace Atkins is starting to make a habit of coming up with some very off-beat characters to play his villains, rather reminiscent of James W. Hall and his unique portrayal of rogues. In his previous book, LEAVIN' TRUNK BLUES, Atkins introduced us to Annie and Fannie, a couple of killer prostitutes with a love of Archie comics and, in Annie's case, a special relationship with her knife. Now, in DARK END OF THE STREET we get a hit man who is not only a devotee of Elvis Presley but who believes Elvis is a divine being. Although the man is obviously an efficient and remorseless killer it's rather difficult to take a man seriously when he's kneeling and praying to his higher being, Elvis Presley.

He has also done a terrific job of capturing the atmosphere of Memphis through the style of music Travers recalls, the bars he frequents on Beale Street and the house styles that are noted as he moves through the city. I enjoyed experiencing the feeling of visiting Memphis almost as much as the story around which the visit was based.

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.

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.

This mystery contains a nice complex mix of characters and
locales. The "detective" is a minor staffer at a major southern
university who is researching early blues performers, and one
of his friends and benefactors asks him to try to find her brother, who, a blues man himself, disappeared about 30 years
before. Since he has been gone so long, he is presumed dead,
but as Nick, the searcher, looks into that disappearance, he is
surprised, under unpleasant circumstances, to learn that others
are also looking for the same 30-year-missing man.
His search brings Nick into contact with other blues performers,
gamblers, politicians, and some unsavory characters in the employ of the "Dixie Mafia."
As the search goes deepr, and becomes more complex, the action
heats up, and the violence becomes more pronounced.
Rather puzzling, though, is Nick's love for the "Old South,"
which couldn't have been that good for many people, especially
the old-time musicians he listens to and admires, because of
racial segregation, but he conforts himself with thoughts and
visions of the "Old South," while he continues his search for
the present missing brother.
His search uncovers many unpleasant truths about both the past
and the present, and he is only able to keep alive due to luck
and the "help of a few friends."
The reader will be engaged by the need to follow 30 years of
southern social and music history, while Nick fights some of
the nastiest psychopaths in print today.
Interesting reading.

This is the third novel in the adventures of Nick Travers, who is supposed to be teaching the history of the blues at Tulane University in New Orleans, but spends his time solving mysterious deaths linked to blues musicians instead. In this escapade, Loretta, Nick's sort of foster mother, asks Nick to locate her estranged brother Clyde James, a blues singer. Loretta lost track of Clyde when he degenerated and dropped out of sight after someone killed Clyde's wife and another musician. The murders are unsolved.

In addition to Loretta and her husband Jojo, Elvis worshiper and antagonist Jesse Garon, a.k.a. Jon Burrows, continue from Ace Atkins first novel. There are several new three-dimensional characters. Perfect Leigh is a beautiful, young, ex-beauty queen cum scam artist a la mistress auditioning for killer. Perfect is stalking Abby MacDonald, a tomboy who doesn't shave. Perfect works for Levi Ransom, the owner of the Magnolia Grand casino and member of the Biloxi mafia. In his search for Clyde, Travers goes to the Magnolia and, in the nick of time, saves Abby who is getting waxed by Perfect. Thereafter, the story gets complicated.

DARK END OF THE STREET has a complex array of interrelated subplots. It requires some leaps of faith and the ending, from around chapter sixty on, seems disjointed, as if the author were pressed by a deadline. Nevertheless, it's a good read.

...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.

Former professional football star Nick Travers teaches blues history at Tulane University. When his friend Loretta asks him to search for her lost brother, former blues singer Clyde James, Nick agrees though he suspects the man is dead after vanishing over two decades ago.

Nick travels from New Orleans to Memphis to begin his quest. However, Nick quickly realizes that several other soulless folks seek the missing Clyde too. These individuals and groups will stop at nothing including murder to find the former great blues singer. As Nick competes with amoral folks, clues send him scurrying to Mississippi where the final chord could be a coda of death.

Though some twists require acceptance, readers will enjoy DARK END OF THE STREET, the follow-up to CROSSROAD BLUES. The story line contains a wild ride throughout the Deep South due an eccentric cast of characters ranging from Dixie mobsters, Klan-like Sons of the South and a sleazy gubernatorial candidate. Nick remains a strong lead character who can carry a novel and a series like a lead singer of a quartet. Mr. Adams dealt an ace to the audience with readers singing the blues only to a climatic sting operation.

Harriet Klausner

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 moody
journey 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.

Someone recently commented to me that there seemed to be an overabundance of private investigators plying their wares around New Orleans in general and the French Quarter in particular. The French Quarter is only one square mile in area, and it would certainly seem as if fictional gumshoes would be tripping over each other if they actually existed in our world. The setting, however, is irresistible for both writers and readers, and as a result, I don't think we'll be suffering from a lack of fictional detectives in New Orleans any time soon.

Ace Atkins is one of the authors who is part of the more recent wave of novelists whose fictional creations walk the grid of the Vieux Carre. DARK END OF THE STREET, Atkins third novel featuring Nick Travers, finds Atkins still in search of his own voice, still caught somewhere between the absurd but biting commentary of Carl Hiaasen and the darkness of James Lee Burke. The occasional geographical errors --- if one turns north from Conti onto Decatur, one is going down river, not upriver, toward Jackson Square; and the French Quarter Tipitina's was on North Peters, not Decatur, and south of Conti --- are minor but unnecessary distractions, as are the gratuitous political potshots which both Atkins and the reader would be better off without. Atkins' characters remain lively and interesting, and his descriptions of Quarter haunts such as Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop are dead-on.

DARK END OF THE STREET finds Travers, a former professional football player and current music history professor, attempting to assist Loretta Jackson, one of his best friends, locate her brother, Clyde James. James, a legendary soul singer from Memphis, seemed in the 1960s to be on the threshold of a brilliant career when his wife and best friend were murdered. James, his life and mind shattered, turned to the streets and disappeared. He is believed to be long dead until Loretta is threatened by two strangers who are seeking James's whereabouts. She goes to Travers, who finds that the trail to both James and the strangers leads to a gambling casino in Tunica, Mississippi.

Atkins interjects himself into a situation at the casino and finds himself involved with Abby MacDonald, a young woman whose parents were suddenly and mysteriously murdered and who now has some dangerous individuals after her as well. It develops that MacDonald's situation dovetails into Travers' own investigation and that the people who murdered MacDonald's parents, and who are after her, are also quite interested in the whereabouts of Clyde James. Atkins gradually uncovers a tale that involves deeds and errors that took place four decades previously, which will have serious repercussions in the present. Atkins also faces a danger from his own past which is wholly unexpected, but no less dangerous for it.

DARK END OF THE STREET paints a portrait of an area and culture in uneasy transition, coming to grips with its past while facing the future. Notwithstanding whatever weaknesses Atkins is still dealing with as a novelist, his portrayal of the music business in the '60s in general, and the independent southern record label scene in particular, is absolutely first rate. You can almost see the 45s spinning on the turntable, the deals being cut, the books being juggled. Atkins does everything but name the names; if you know the scene, however, you know exactly who he's talking about. This is a man who will undoubtedly continue to grow and develop as a writer, and will continue to be worth watching and reading.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub