The Fallen is the seventh book by Ace Atkins involving his Quinn Colson character and each novel becomes better and better.

What I like about this series is that it has avoided becoming stale. It also lacks the appearance of being assembled with a cookie cutter-like formula, so often found with novels involving recurring characters and settings.

Atkins brings back familiar and earlier introduced characters and allows them to grow and progress through his novels. He also introduces new characters and villains, some clearly quite dangerous.

In this novel, Colson finds himself in the middle of an investigation involving highly trained bank robbers, with skills he respects and believes have been developed through military training. Along the way, his foes included the returning of Fannie Hathcock, who is slowly revealed to be quite cagey and very dangerous. Other villains remain hidden below the surface, with the promise of being revealed later in future installments.

Additional plotlines are included, which later converge along with the main storyline.

The Fallen is highly recommended and I envy the reader that gets to pick up this series from the start for the first time because each novel grows.

The bad thing about receiving an advanced reader's copy of The Fallen is the anticipation of waiting for the next novel because Atkins clearly has set that one in motion to pick up where this one has left off

The Fallen is the seventh book by Ace Atkins involving his Quinn Colson character and each novel becomes better and better.

What I like about this series is that it has avoided becoming stale. It also lacks the appearance of being assembled with a cookie cutter-like formula, so often found with novels involving recurring characters and settings.

Atkins brings back familiar and earlier introduced characters and allows them to grow and progress through his novels. He also introduces new characters and villains, some clearly quite dangerous.

In this novel, Colson finds himself in the middle of an investigation involving highly trained bank robbers, with skills he respects and believes have been developed through military training. Along the way, his foes included the returning of Fannie Hathcock, who is slowly revealed to be quite cagey and very dangerous. Other villains remain hidden below the surface, with the promise of being revealed later in future installments.

Additional plotlines are included, which later converge along with the main storyline.

The Fallen is highly recommended and I envy the reader that gets to pick up this series from the start for the first time because each novel grows.

The bad thing about receiving an advanced reader's copy of The Fallen is the anticipation of waiting for the next novel because Atkins clearly has set that one in motion to pick up where this one has left off.

The Fallen by Ace Atkins- The seventh book in Atkin's Quinn Colson series of southern noir, The Fallen is more of a slice of dark, murky goings on than a mystery. You know right up front who the bad guys are and what they're planning to do. Most of the action is muted so as not to be central to the story, many encounters are more told than shown, and the violence is kept to a discreet minimum. The story revolves around the conversations and asides of the various characters- good and bad- as they go about what they are determined to achieve. There's no heroism or supermen here, just people pushed in one direction or another by their wants and desires. You get a real feel for the people and the place where they live. It's rather low key, but I found the setting and the characters authentic and interesting. Kind of a slow burn story with not a lot of surprises, but entertaining none the less.

My spiritual fiancé Sheriff Quinn Colson is once again...oh crap I've gotten my realities mixed up again.
Full disclosure I don't think Ace Atkins could write a bad book, or a boring book. (But then again I don't read the Spenser books because I dislike that entire series). So I guess I could stop here and just say read this, read this the minute it comes out. But I'll spend a bit of time telling you why.
He writes beautifully of the setting, north Mississippi with its stark beauty of the Delta or the lush beauty of the hill country. Since Atkins now lives in Oxford, MS he knows the awful history, poverty and corruption balanced by the warmth of the people, the faith, the culture and the growing prosperity.
Ace Atkins rarely has a character painted in grey tones. Some might see that as a negative, but these are thrilling action packed stories. Shades of grey aren't needed. I would surely love to be invited to one of Miss Jean's fried chicken dinners and share a table with Quinn, Boom, Jason, Cady and Lillie. I might also like to visit Vienna's and meet Fannie, just because she is so fascinating. By the end of the story she makes me wish the original Tibbehah bad guy was out of jail and back in town.
The story is of three men wearing Trump masks robbing banks across the south. They finally hit a bank in Tibbehah County. But what is unknown is that two of the men have connections to Tibbehah. The robbers finally bite off more than they can handle because of these connections. There is a sad subplot of Cady trying to track down two young girls who have had the misfortune to have encountered Miss Fannie.
Atkins does dialogue so very well, fast moving, realistic and clever. Warning, if you are offended by bad language steer clear. He does action equally as well, also fast moving, realistic (mostly) and clever.
My favorite line was uttered by a bad guy but still almost made me cry with envy: "Had a Sazerac over at the Roosevelt." Damn, I miss those days when I could say those same words.
I have been a fan of Atkins since he wrote the Nick Travers series. So I will raise a Sazerac in honor of Ace in salute of a terrific new read. Although this is part of a series, I see no reason why it could not be read as a standalone. It will just want to make you go back and read the others.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.