My week suddenly became very busy and blogging time cut down to zero. I am posting a review of The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins that I wrote for Suspense Magazine. I am always happy to celebrate another author’s writing.
The principal characters in The Lost Ones are soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to rural Mississippi, soldiers who have not yet learned to put their guns down. One of them, Sheriff Quinn Colson, has become the chief law enforcement officer of Tebbehah County. Another, Donnie Varner, runs a gun shop and shooting range, and is not averse to making a sale to buyers on the wrong side of the law, a dangerous business, especially when he becomes involved with members of a Mexican drug cartel.
At the same time, Quinn and his deputy, Lillie Virgil, are on the trail of another group of unsavory characters who are in the business of selling Mexican babies. Their crimes become even more serious when one of the babies dies, and the couple last seen with the child have disappeared along with several other children. They have left a filthy trailer, clear evidence of the treatment the children received, as well as abused dogs penned outside in even worse filth. The sheriff seems to just miss this notorious group every time they reach a new hideout.
The characters in The Lost Ones are as real as your next door neighbors. They live in an economically depressed region of the South, where poverty and political corruption are a way of life. But a novel populated with as many unsavory characters as this one only becomes a great novel when it is clear that even the best characters have their weaknesses, and the worst just may have a “good” quality or two.
Author Ace Atkins takes the reader through many twists and turns as the plot barrels to its dramatic conclusion. The Lost Ones will keep you up until the last page is turned, and leave you satisfied and waiting for the next novel in the Quinn Colson series.