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THE FALLEN by Ace Atkins

THE FALLEN

by Ace Atkins

Pub Date: July 18th, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57671-3
Publisher: Putnam

Reluctantly back in the saddle as the sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, Quinn Colson goes up against a trio of bank robbers as cunning as they are clueless.

Rick Wilcox, Jonas Cord (who’s borrowed his name from that of a notorious Harold Robbins hero), and their buddy Opie have robbery down to a science. They know exactly the best time to move on even modest institutions like the Jericho First National Bank, and they perform each job with military precision. While Cord waits in a disposable stolen truck, the other two enter each target armed with a stopwatch, a pair of assault rifles, two Donald Trump masks, and an unforgettable tagline: “Anyone moves and I’ll grab ‘em by the pussy.” No one generally moves, and the former Marines and their junior partner drive off, ditch their ride and set it afire, and then take off to plot their next caper. Now that they’ve fouled his nest, Quinn would love to catch them, but he and his deputies have their hands full with the disappearance of teenagers Tamika Odum and Ana Maria Mata, county supervisor Skinner’s endless complaints against Vienna’s Place, the strip club Fannie Hathcock runs just outside the city limits, and the trashing of Maggie Powers’ house by somebody, presumably her estranged husband, who didn’t even bother to steal anything. This last crime would barely register on Quinn’s radar if Maggie weren’t a well-nigh forgotten friend he spent summers playing with as a child, an old acquaintance with whom his friendship might well blossom into something else. In between shared meals of catfish and whiskey, though, Quinn keeps being drawn back to Vienna’s Place—and so, it turns out, do the robbers he’s pursuing.

Beneath the down-home Southern trappings, fans will find Atkins’ customary mixture of political corruption, true-blue policing, intimate betrayals, and wholesale violence. The satisfyingly inconclusive ending of this sequel to the equally dark The Innocents (2016) puts a whole new spin on catharsis.