Author: Ace Atkins

Title: The Ranger

Publisher: Putnum

Ace Atkins lives on a farm outside of Oxford, Mississippi, which might explain why almost all of his stories take place south of the Mason Dixon line. Atkins writes southern noir which accentuates violence and minimizes grace. People just plain get what's coming to them in a story like this, and everybody in a story like this has got something coming to them.

His book, The Ranger, is Atkins' first offering in his new series about Quinn Colson, an Army Ranger, who has survived multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan only to return home to find that existing in Tibbehah County is just as dangerous as the living conditions he faced in the Middle East.

It is his uncle's death that brings him back to his childhood home for the first time since he joined the Army. Instead of a hero's welcome he is greeted with dark whispers that his uncle, who had been the town's sheriff, didn't actually commit suicide, but had been murdered.

Quinn had planned to use his remaining time on leave putting his uncle's affairs in order but finds that there are more affairs and double dealings than what he knows how to deal with. His resorts to using the conflict resolution skills the army has equipped him with - violence.

A second story line follows a very pregnant 16-year-old, Lena, who hitches a ride with Quinn into his home town of Jericho, thinking she will find her missing baby's daddy in time to give birth and that he will fulfill the promises he gave to her before disappearing. Of course she finds that nothing within the walls of this town is what it appears to be on the surface.

The pacing of the story is quick, mostly because there is very little dialog between the characters. There are no speeches, solil­o­quies, or discussions about the right and wrong of a thing; there are just a lot of half truths, followed by elevated levels of pushing and shoving till the whole thing comes a tumbling down.

In interviews Atkins explains that his new series is meant to honor the real folks coming home from multiple battlefronts. "There are a lot of real guys like Quinn out there. You may work with them or they may be in your family but today's American soldiers are the toughest, most respected people in the country right now. I'm proud to represent them in this new series." Whether or not he truly captures what it is like for the soldier coming home depends a lot upon location. Hopefully not many of them are from Tibbehah County.

Readers should be warned that there are very few moments of beauty in this story. This, again, is a great example of southern (maybe even redneck) noir. There is violence, corruption, prostitution, drug dealing, murder, mayhem, degradation of women, slaughter of animals, and even more violence - all before the fried chicken and biscuits are served at supper. Hopefully Quinn's darkest days can be behind him and the subsequent books in the series can honor the plight of a soldier making his way home with a little more grace and a lot less guts.

*This review first published 6/22/2011