The Broken Places

THE BROKEN PLACE just might be my favorite Ace Atkins book to date. Overall, I am enjoying the terse writing style, the depth of each and every character, and the steady pacing of each Quinn Colson thriller. In THE BROKEN PLACE Sheriff Colson has his hands full. Three convicts have escaped prison. They have unsettled business in Tibbehah County. Money from a heist gone south should be waiting for them. If not, there was going to be hell to pay. A new preacher in town has won the heart of Colson\’s sister, Caddy. Thing is, Jamey Dixon hit rock bottom before finding the Lord. Sent to prison for the murder of a young woman, Dixon was looking at life behind bars. That is until he was granted a pardon, and found himself a free man. Caddy loves the man Dixon is now. The family of Dixon\’s victim –not so much. With a forced hand, Colson finds himself in the middle of investigations that have a direct effect on his family. If he\’s not careful, he and his deputy, Lillie, could find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and possible arrested for murder. Hate to say this each time I review an Ace Atkins novel, but Quinn Colson is the perfect combination of Jack Reacher and Walt Longmire. His Quinn Colson series has that bad-ass military feel, and that small town everyone-knows-everyone handicap. Absolutely love the plots, the characters, and where Ace Atkins is taking the series! Phillip Tomasso Author of the Severed Empire Series, and The Vaccination Trilogy

It begins with a prison break. Three inmates from Mississippi\’s notorious Parchman Prison manage to abscond from the place. One in a big truck goes through the gates, while two others escape on horseback. The two on horseback cut their way through the wire fence around the prison farm and manage to find a car to steal. Then they are on their way to North Mississippi, Tibbehah County and the little town of Jericho, where they plan to confront the man who they believe has the money from an armored truck robbery they pulled off before they were caught and sent to prison. Meanwhile, in Jericho, Quinn Colson, the veteran of the war in Afghanistan who returned to his home town and was elected sheriff, is, one year later, still adjusting to his new life after several years as an Army Ranger. His latest challenge is an ex-con named Jamey Dixon who was convicted several years before of killing a local woman. He had made use of his time in prison to earn a degree from a seminary through distance learning. Dixon has been pardoned by the outgoing governor and has returned to Jericho claiming to have been cleansed by Jesus from all his sins. He\’s trying to establish a ministry in the town, using an old barn as the meeting place. The family of the woman that Dixon was convicted of killing still think he\’s guilty and unworthy of a pardon, but many seem to believe in his redemption. One of those, to Quinn Colson\’s chagrin, is his younger sister, Caddy, a troubled young single mother of a five-year-old son who has been trying to clean up her act and turn her wasted life around for the sake of her son. She completely believes in Dixon and they are planning a life together. Colson\’s own love life is not exactly a paragon of rectitude. In fact, it is quite messed up as he continues an affair with his high school sweetheart who is now married to a local doctor with whom she has a daughter. So, we have a typical small Southern town where everybody knows everybody and everybody\’s business and most of them are related in some way. Ace Atkins is a talented writer and he has a genuine ear for North Mississippi speech and for human relationships there. I speak as one who grew up in the area. I recognize these people and I could hear their voices in my ear as I read The Broken Places. This was the third installment in Atkins\’ Quinn Colson series and it is definitely my favorite so far. All of the books have been very well written, but this one shows an even stronger sense of place than the earlier two. Moreover, the plot is well conceived and the action is non-stop. It is a real page-turner, one that you don\’t want to put down once you are into it. The story of the escaped convicts and their quest to regain their ill-gotten loot moves along briskly with a few dead bodies littering their progress, but then, in the middle of it all and in the middle of law enforcement\’s search for the killers, a massive storm hits the little town of Jericho, almost destroying it. The search for the hardened criminals takes a back seat to an emergency situation that requires all the resources that the town, the state, and nearby communities can provide. The miscreants couldn\’t care less about an emergency situation. They just want their money and a way to get out of town to freedom. It all heads for a showdown – bad guys against good guys. After all the complications of the plot, Atkins provides the reader with a satisfying climax, and still manages to keep us in suspense as to Colson\’s fate following the showdown, giving us a reason to look for the next book in the series. His strategy sure worked on me.

Quinn Colson is not your typical county sheriff. He doesn\’t seem all that much interested in his job and he tends to be indifferent to the unfolding events in his county, mainly the arrival of three vicious escaped convicts looking for their share of the loot from an armored car holdup. Once things do heat up he takes matters into his own hands along with his lead deputy. Apparently, he is intent on forgetting his years in Afghanistan, which he does by not engaging with the problem of the convicts (and in having an affair with his friend\’s wife) until it is too late. Maybe Colson was a likable character in the first two books in this series but in this one he seems detached and aloof, outside the action looking in. The main thing he does is browbeat his sister concerning her relationship with yet another convict (this one pardoned by the governor) who has returned to the county to be a preacher. Colson is bright enough to see that there may just be a link between all these convicts arriving in his county, but he in effect says \”not my problem\” and goes back to sitting in his office drinking coffee. The bodies keep dropping as the convicts try to get their money but Colson is unconcerned. Then a huge tornado rips through the county seat (Jericho), giving the convicts the cover they need to find out where the money went. It also shakes Colson out of his lethargy and he and his deputy set out with his his sister\’s preacher boyfriend to bring everything to a head. The result is more bodies and an accusation that Colson himself was in on the deal with the preacher boyfriend. The book ends with a federal indictment hanging over his head. Ace Atkins is a first-rate writer and this book in no exception. There is plenty of action as the escaped convicts make their way to Jericho, set against Sheriff Colson\’s dogged inaction. Atkins highlights Colson\’s failure to see the big picture (and maybe makes a little fun of small towns) with the comical turnip theft case. Colson is definitely the anti-hero in this book, giving small town police work a different twist. I would imagine that Atkins will try to rehabilitate Colson in the coming books of this series.

This is the third in a series from Ace Atkins about a former US Army Ranger that returned from his service and become the local sheriff. If you have seen the TV series Justified and like it, you just have to read this series. Once again we have real criminals and odd people in a mix that makes for a very interesting and rewarding read. Quinn Colson as the sheriff is doing his job the best he can and it is nice to have hero that is fully human. He makes mistakes, he has attitudes that are not always politically correct but he also has a lot of common sense and his experience from the army to fall back on. One other thing that feels real is that there is not always a black and white side. Some of the criminals or semi criminals also have human sides that makes them real to you and some of the policemen involved are not always those high standing citizens you expect. The Story was a little slow to begin with but then picks up speed and have a terrific ending that promises at least one more book in the series. I will surly look out for that one. What Michael Connelly writes on the cover about Ace Atkins: \”One of the Best Crime writers at work today\”, is not an exaggeration.

I have given previous Quinn Colson books four stars, having enjoyed them a lot, but here I think Atkins has stepped up a gear. That\’s partly due to the writing – always good but here that shade better. The opening sequence (the convicts and their escape), for example, is such a perfect little vignette, the characters brought to life with just a few brush strokes, the action described succinctly but evocatively. But it\’s not just the writing, it\’s the characters. Jamey Dixon, for example: you just want him to turn out bad, or very good, but he ends up something kind of in between, a flawed but worthwhile human being. I am going to buy the next book right now.

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