{"title":"Ace Atkins","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"crossroad-blues-a-nick-travers-mystery","title":"Crossroad Blues: A Nick Travers Mystery","description":"\u003cp\u003eNick Travers is back where it all began.\u003cbr\u003e Years after The Philadelphia Inquirer proclaimed Crossroad Blues an impressive debut by a promising new talent, the acclaimed crime novel is back in print.\u003cbr\u003e A modern, Southern re-invention of The Maltese Falcon, Crossroad Blues won noir fans with its nod to the masters and thrilled readers with a wild ride along Highway 61. Its here that we first meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orleans Saint turned Tulane University blues historian. Nick searches for the lost recordings of 1930s bluesman Robert Johnsonand a missing colleagueand finds trouble at every turn.\u003cbr\u003e The cast of characters includes a red-headed siren, an Elvis-worshipping hitman, Johnsons ghost, and the Mississippi Delta itself. A decade later, Crossroad Blues still sings.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eCritical Praise\u003cbr\u003e In Atkins hands, the characters are as substantial as a down home breakfast of biscuits and ham with red-eye gravy. Entertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e When (Atkins) old guys open up, you can really hear the music everybody talks about so reverently. The New York Times\u003cbr\u003e \"Atkins' research into blues history adds depth and context to the always entertaining story, which whizzes by like an old, familiar song heard on the car radio late at night.\" The Chicago Tribune\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eThis edition includes an Afterword by Greil Marcus\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47263733383462,"sku":"9780312192549","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/c5f5b66c-b972-4b21-9a2e-79bafeb3e38a.jpg?v=1701084788"},{"product_id":"leavin-trunk-blues","title":"Leavin' Trunk Blues","description":"\u003cp\u003eChristmas Eve on the South Side of Chicago: a grey coldness envelops the crumbling housing projects and tattered neighbourhoods. Seventy miles away - locked in a scarred prison cell - waits Ruby Walker, a woman who in every way is the South Side. More than forty years ago, she - like several million blacks during the Great Migration - boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to what she believed was the promised land. She became one of the greatest blues singers the city had ever known - only to lose it all after being convicted of murdering her lover and producer, Billy Lyons, in September 1959. Decades later, Walker agrees to an interview with Nick Travers, blues historian from Tulane University, but the interview comes with a demand that he check out what she calls the truth behind Lyons's last hours. With a tale studded with irresistible characters like the hateful Stagger Lee, and two beautifully named sociopathic females, Fast Lovin' Fannie and Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, Ace Atkins has produced another atmospheric and entertaining murder-mystery set in the sleazy romance of blues country.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47263733547302,"sku":"9780312242121","price":15.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/225c3e5a-334a-4c1a-95d6-538c153b25d7.jpg?v=1701084793"}],"url":"https:\/\/goldsborobooks.pro\/collections\/ace-atkins.oembed","provider":"Goldsboro Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}