This Goodly Land

Ace Atkins (June 28, 1970–present)

Other Names Used

• William Ace Atkins: full name

Alabama Connections

• Troy, Pike County: birthplace
• Auburn, Lee County: childhood residence, education

Selected Works

• Atkins, Ace. Crossroad Blues: A Nick Travers Mystery. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
• Atkins, Ace. Leavin' Trunk Blues: A Nick Travers Mystery. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000.
• Atkins, Ace. Dark End of the Street. New York: William Morrow, 2002.
• Atkins, Ace. Dirty South. New York: William Morrow, 2004.
• Atkins, Ace. White Shadow. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2006.
• Atkins, Ace. Wicked City. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008.
• Atkins, Ace. Devil's Garden. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2009.

Biographical Information

Ace Atkins was born in Troy, Ala., and grew up in Auburn, Ala. He attended Auburn University on a football scholarship and wrote fiction in his free time. After graduating in 1994, Atkins moved to Florida and worked in a bookstore and as a correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times. In 1996, he became a crime reporter for the Tampa Tribune. Atkins continued to write fiction in his off-hours. Crossroad Blues, published in 1998, was the first of his “Nick Travers” mystery novels. In 2001, Atkins left the Tribune. He and his wife moved to Oxford, Miss., where Atkins wrote full time and taught some journalism classes at the University of Mississippi. In the mid-2000s, he began writing novels based on real-life crimes. The first, White Shadow, based on the unsolved murder of a Tampa gangster, was published in 2006. Atkins lives with his family on a farm outside of Oxford.

Interests and Themes

Ace Atkins’s “Nick Travers” mysteries feature plots that are related to blues music. White Shadow, Wicked City, and Devil’s Garden are based on real-life crimes. Wicked City is set in Phenix City, Ala.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Web Sites

• Official Site of American Writer Ace Atkins. 2009. http://www.aceatkins.com.
• Ferrer, Juan C. "Ace Atkins". Mississippi Writers & Musicians. 2008. Starkville [Miss.] High School. http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/ace-atkins.html.

Photo by Jay E. Nolan, © Carrefour Ltd., 2008; courtesy of Penguin Group US.

Last updated on Oct 10, 2009.