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Former New Orleans Saint NICK TRAVERS blew his pro football career when he punched out his coach out on national television. So now he's a professor of the blues at Louisiana's Tulane University and sometime-harmonica player who makes like a private eye in his debut, the well-received Crossroad Blues (1998) when he looks into the disappearancce of a colleague. Seems his pal was hot on the trail of some long-lost recordings by Robert Johnson in the Mississippi Delta town of Greenwood, when he disappeared. Along the way, Nick comes across the usual murderous mess of greed, corruption and secrets. Oh, yes, and a psychopath who thinks he's Elvis. An auspicious debut, making masterful use of setting, and Nick Travers is an intriguingly flawed hero, worth getting to know. Or at least that was my initial impression. Unfortunately, the amateur sleuth conventions started to wear thin as the series progressed, and all the goofy killers and obligatory blues name-dropping didn't seem quite as fresh anymore. Something else that bugged me -- and maybe it's just me -- but the occasional potshots at white boys playing the blues started to grate. They seemed a tad hypocritcal, given that the author is himself a white boy and that the books themselves often seem not so much the blues as merely about the blues -- more about the trivia than the feel. There's a lot of smoke and some serious heat, for sure -- but the books never quite burst into flames. And that's too bad, because at his best, Atkins is a good writer, with a definite knack for atmosphere, a solid feel for character and a nice touch with plot. And he get dibs for originality. So I'm still at the crossroads about this series. The first Nick Travers novel, Crossroad Blues (1998), was Atkins' first novel. In 2001, he earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his investigation into a 1950s murder, which in turn inspired his 2006 novel White Shadow. The book was followed by which was followed by three more history-based crime novels Wicked City, Infamous and Devil's Garden, in whichAtkins took a shot at casting Dashiell Hammett himself as a private eye investigating the notorious Fatty Arbuckle murder/rape case. In April 2011, it was announced that Atkins would be continuing the Spenser series after the death of Robert B. Parker. UNDER OATH
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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. | Home | Detectives A-L M-Z | Film | Radio | Television | Web Comics | Comics | FAQs | Drop a dime. Your comments, suggestions, corrections and contributions are always welcome.
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