Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Leavin' Trunk Blues by Ace Atkins Leavin' Trunk Blues — Ace Atkins. It's been a year since Nick Traver's search for the lost recording of blues phantom Robert Johnson in Crossroad Blues. He has grown comfortable playing his harp at JoJo's in the French Quarter and teaching blues history at Tulane. A difficult case was the last thing on the blues tracker's mind. When new details on the mysterious death of a blues record producer surface from a legendary guitarist over a bottle of Crown Royal, Nick becomes intrigued. In 1959, Billy Lyons' body was found stabbed with an ice pick and floating in Lake Michigan. His lover, a blues singer named Ruby Walker, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder. But even after Ruby was sentenced, rumors emerged of a gambling debt to the black mafia or a possible hit called by Lyons' partner, Moses Jordan, who moved on to immortality with another label. After arriving at Chicago's Union Station, Travers learns there are still those who'd like Billy Lyons' murder to remain unsolved. He soon has fresh blood splattered on his boots and he's running in the blackened snow from a rogues gallery of killers that include a 6-foot-5, 300 pound breathing ball of hate named Stagger Lee Jordan and a beautiful pair of sociopaths--Butcher Knife-Totin' Annie and Fast-Lovin' Fannie--two women with respective talents for love and death. His quest for Lyons' killer retraces the route of the Delta greats during the Great Migration of blacks after World War II. From the historic Maxwell Street Market to the South Side's Checkerboard Lounge, take a hint from Robert Johnson when he sang, "C'mon. Baby don't you want to go. Back to that same old place--My Sweet Home Chicago." Life is easy, living is hard Readin' Ace Atkins' blues. Nick Travers is: Alabama-born, a former Saint (of the New Orleans variety, fallen from grace on national television) with a doctorate from the University of Mississippi and an on-and-off teaching gig at Tulane. His skin is white and his blood runs thick with the blues; he courts trouble more frequently than women, and sometimes they're the same thing. And while he plays the blues, at a joint called JoJo's, he's much more successful in preserving them against an uncertain future. Travers is a blues historian by trade, part Peter Guralnick, part Philip Marlowe, and pretty much unique in a genre of fiction jam-packed with hard-luck hard-boiled hard cases -- he's the folk historian as private detective (professions linked by similar job requirements, fueled by cigarettes and booze), set loose in a world rife with mystery. So far, those worlds have been confined to 1998's Crossroad Blues and 2000's Leavin' Trunk Blues , both written by one Ace Atkins -- the Alabama-born defensive end for the undefeated 1993 Auburn University football team and, up until a few weeks ago, a crime reporter for the Tampa Tribune . Atkins began writing about Travers in 1988, after a family trip to New Orleans put flame to his high-school mind. He was a blues fan at the time, a condition he attributes to Muddy Waters' Hard Again , which he heard at the age of 13, but he didn't know much about their history -- a situation he remedied with research as he developed the adventures of his New Orleans-based blues hero. (Who, by the way, isn't that autobiographical; the character is much closer to a football player-turned-college professor he met at school, Atkins says.) Time passed for Atkins, and for Travers, as time passes for all. Atkins penned two Travers novels before the third -- Crossroad Blues -- found a publisher, which is where this story picks up. The novel follows Travers back and forth between New Orleans and Greenwood, Mississippi, where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson was murdered in 1938; some say by the hands of a jealous woman, some by the hands of a jealous man, no one can say with authority. Whatever. One of Travers' colleagues has disappeared into the hinterlands of Mississippi, and someone wants to know what happened to him; Travers (somewhat reluctantly) accepts and proceeds to (quite accidentally) pop the top on one of the great mysteries of the blues world. At stake are several lives and, more importantly, nine previously unknown recordings by Johnson. (The seed for Crossroad was planted, Atkins says, when he read a throwaway line in a book on Johnson -- a smattering of words amounting to a rumor of a handful of Johnson recordings destroyed during a poolroom fight.) The book stinks of the deep South, of the lonely stretches of road and decaying settlements that refuse to move into the future; of cotton, corn whiskey and collard greens; and like Johnson's blues, the world of Crossroad is alive with ghosts, is always haunted by the possibility of violence or, worse, death. And in Crossroad , the odds are good that the hellhound's well on your trail; and if by chance he isn't, there's typically a white somebody eager to take his place. (White exploitation of black musical history, reduced to an effective supernatural metaphor; but maybe I'm reading too much into it.) Atkins also offers up a rogue's gallery of supporting characters, all sprung from the fertile musical and social loins of the area: a 19-year-old thug named Jesse Garon obsessed with, yes, Elvis; a black albino named Cracker; Pascal Cruz, the devilish white owner of a New Orleans blues shack not unlike the House of Blues; in flashback, Robert Johnson, tormented, thirsty, aware of his doom; and, finally, the identity of Johnson's killer. If the Delta is their dance floor, then the music Atkins plays is equal parts research and improvisation -- wild flurries of Johnson arcana, followed by the refrain of Travers' fictional search, the blend a fast-paced progression prominently featuring loss, love and a wry sense of humor uncomplicated by big-city living. Atkins and Travers moved north, to Chicago, for their next outing, Leavin' Trunk Blues . This time, the story is that of Ruby Walker -- the Sweet Black Angel of Chicago's South Side -- serving time for the murder of Billy Lyons, her lover and record producer. Travers has come north to interview her, to record her story before it passes beyond the pale, but Walker has one demand before she'll grant his request -- he has to look into Lyons' murder, see what he can dig up about it. What he finds, among other things, is the rough history of the Chicago blues and the Great Migration of Southern blacks during the 1940's and 1950's played out on a criminal scale -- betrayals of early promise, shut-eye compromise made into riches, the rise and fall of music in the town where it became a major musical force. More specifically, he finds living (well, mostly) ghosts brought north during the migration, and the children of those ghosts. Not just Ruby Walker and Billy Lyons, but Lyons' traditional enemy -- Stagger Lee, pure hate bottled black and mean, scourge of the South Side, a dog-collared peddler of vice run to ruin. And his two agents, Butcher Knife Totin' Annie and Fast Fuckin' Fannie (dust jacket says Fast Lovin', but don't be fooled -- there's a world of difference between the two), streetwise children enamored of crack and violence. You don't have to get all the references to get the book, but they add a mythic quality to the story that raises the novel's stakes. Annie and Fannie share common parentage in the song �Wang Dang Doodle,� and Stagger Lee (or Stacker Lee, or Stagolee, or Staggerlee) and his legend may be traced back through decades of black folklore, as can the legend of his rival, Billy Lyons (or Billy the Lion, or Billy the Liar). The details -- how Stagger Lee killed Billy, or over what -- are irrelevant in the legend; what's important is the act itself, final, irrevocable, and made real in Leavin' Trunk . (For the final word on Stagger Lee, hie thee to Greil Marcus's Mystery Train , if you haven't already.) There's an underlying logic to the setting of the two novels. Following their development in the Delta, the blues followed the black migration from the South, to points northward. Chicago, chiefly. The blues came of age on Chicago's South Side, where electricity and Muddy Waters made the form a matter of public record; so if Crossroad is the story of the Delta blues, then Leavin' Trunk is the second step in the music's evolution. Also: Crossroad is lighter, funnier, set during the fading weeks of a Southern summer. The landscape is more alive, the people native to it more easy-going, the atmosphere charged with hints of the supernatural. Leavin' Trunk , by contrast, takes place during the week leading up to Christmas Eve; Chicago is gray with cold, hunkered down for the latest in a long series of winters, a slice of grim reality set down in the Midwest. No room for superstition here, and the people Travers encounters are more prone to violence, are accustomed to a different stripe of poverty than their Southern forebears. All of the characters are very much of their settings; Fannie and Annie in Greenwood wouldn't fly, nor would Cracker in Chicago. But you get the feeling that Pascal Cruz, the exploiter of the blues, and Stagger Lee, blues demon made real, could make it anywhere. So, in the course of two novels, you get a load of education (both directly stated and implied) about the birth of the blues and its first major move from home. Atkins' next novel (he's working on it now) is set, he says, in Memphis, which he sees as location for the next major progression in 20th century black music -- the birth and evolution of Southern soul music. What Travers is poised to find there is -- forgive the phrase -- a mystery to me. We'll see. Ace Atkins. by Juan C. Ferrer (SHS) (2003) Information has been updated. Ace Atkins was born William Ace Atkins in Troy, Alabama, on June 28, 1970. As a young student at Auburn High School, he never read the books he. Authors Tom Franklin, William Boyle, and Ace Atkins. Photo courtesy of Ace Atkins (2018) was supposed to read; but because his teachers constantly encouraged him to read and write, he finally discovered the joy of writing (Atkins). After receiving a football scholarship for college, he played defensive end on the undefeated 1993 Auburn football team and was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated . In college, he majored in screenplay writing. After receiving his degree from Auburn University, Atkins decided that being a reporter was a good apprenticeship for his goal of eventually writing novels. After covering crimes as a staff reporter for the Tampa Tribune from 1996 through 2001 (Brown) and being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Atkins decided to write novels full time (Atkins). Atkins wrote his first two novels, Crossroad Blues and Leavin’ Trunk Blues while working as a reporter (Brown). Atkins now lives near Oxford, Mississippi, after being offered a job as visiting professor in journalism at the University of Mississippi (Brown), and he spends his time writing in his farmhouse outside Oxford with his dogs, Elvis and Polk Salad Annie and several others, when he is not teaching at Ole Miss. Ace Atkins published a Nick Travers novel called Dirty South in 2004. Also in 2004 he was a speaker at the Welty Symposium at MUW in Columbus, Mississippi. Using his experiences as a reporter for the Tampa Tribune , Atkins wrote White Shadow , which was published May 4, 2006. It is a fictionalized story of the unsolved murder in 1955 of the real-life Tampa crime boss Charlie Wall, whose nickname “the white shadow” is the title of the book. Wall’s murder occurs at the beginning of the book when he is an old man, and Detective Ed Dodge and a Tampa reporter search Tampa and Havana (before Castro) for the killer. The novel is set in Florida in the 1950s. Atkins then published Devil’s Garden (2009), Infamous (2010), The Ranger (A Quinn Colson Novel) 2012, The Lost Ones (A Quinn Colson Novel) 2012, Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby (Spenser) 2012, The Broken Places (A Quinn Colson Novel), May 30, 2013, and Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland (Spenser) May 7,2013). Atkins covered Hurricane Katrina for Outside magazine, Hurricane Ivan for Newsweek magazine, and has an essay in the September 2007 issue of Outside magazine called “Shut Up About My Truck.” His work is included in two anthologies: They Write Among Us , 2003, and New Orleans Noir , 2007. Since 2013 he has published The Broken Places (A Quinn Colson novel, Book 3) May 1, 2014; Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot ( Spenser, Book 3) May 6, 2014; The Forsaken (A Quinn Colson novel) July 24, 2014; Robert B. Parker’s Kickback (Spenser Book 28) by Ace Atkins , May 19, 2015; and The Redeemers (A Quinn Colson Novel Book 5) July 2015; Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn (Spenser) May, 2016; and The Innocents (A Quinn Colson Novel) July 2016. In 2016 also published Nick Travers Volume 1: Last Fair Deal Gone Down Graphic Novel, the first in a series of graphic novel adaptations to be published by 12-Gauge Comics. Ace Atkins, Photo by N. Jacobs. His honors and awards include a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and a nomination for the Livingston Award in 2000. He was awarded the first Arts Advancement Award from Auburn University and was nominated for the Gumshoe Award in 2004 and the Barry Award in 2007. According to Atkins, his book, Wicked City (2008), is his most personal book to date. It is set in a vice-ridden Alabama town twenty miles from where he attended high school and college. Although many of the characters in Wicked City are historical figures, some are drawn from the imagination and still others are “composites taken from Atkins’ rich family history of Alabama bootleggers, tied to Southern-fried political corruption and demagoguery in the 1940s and ‘50s.” (Atkins) Last Fair Deal Gone Down, a short story written fifteen years ago and which features music historian and detective Nick Travers (four early novels have Nick Travers as the protagonist), was published in a tenth anniversary edition of Crossroad Blues in 2008. That edition was nominated for an Edgar Award. The short story has now been turned into a graphic novel. Atkins was selected by the Robert B. Parker estate to continue the bestselling adventures of Boston’s iconic private eye, Spenser. Atkins has now written five novels that imitate the style of Robert B. Parker. Now a New York Times bestselling author of more than a nineteen novels, Atkins has written eight Quinn Colson novels in which the protagonist is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who comes home to Mississippi to fight corruption at home.. The novels are currently in development for a major television series. He also writes essays and investigative articles for several magazines that include Outside and Garden and Gun . Little White Lies, a Spenser novel and The Fallen: A Quinn Colson novel were both published in 2017. Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic (Spencer) and The Sinners ( A Quinn Colson Novel) were both published in 2018. Atkins, who is 48 in 2018, lives on a historic farm outside Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and young son. In 2019 he published The Shameless . Reviews. A Review of Dark End of the Street. by Juan C. Ferrer (SHS) (2002) A jazz historian and a professor at Tulane University, Nick Travers spends most of his time tracking down long lost and forgotten musicians. When one of his best friends, Loretta Jackson, asks him to find her brother, Soul music legend Clyde James, who has not been seen for fifteen years, Nick immediately starts to track him down. Nick’s search leads him to a casino in Tunica, Mississippi. From this point, the wild ride in the chase of Clyde James begins. While searching for James, Travers along the way rescues from the casino in Tunica a kidnapped girl whose parents were killed , discovers a cover-up to a fifteen-year-old murder, and repeatedly escapes from an assassin who thinks that he is the deceased brother of Elvis. Throughout the story, there are many uses of foul language, suggestive dialogue and sexual situations, which I believe, are done for verisimilitude. I really liked the way the story moves along, although sometimes it can be hard to follow because of the overwhelming amount of information the reader has to know for each character. Dark End of the Street has great reviews from the critics and is a must read for the thriller and suspense lover. A Telephone Interview with Ace Atkins by Juan Ferrer (2002) (December 12, 2002) Where were you born? Troy, Alabama, in 1970. Where did you go to high school? Ace Atkins at the Eudora Welty symposium in Columbus, Ms. Photo by Nancy Jacobs. Auburn High School. Where did you go to college? Auburn University. When did you become interested in writing? Got interested in writing during high school when teachers encouraged me to read and write. I never read the books I was supposed to read. Who are your favorite authors? John Steinbeck, James Lee Burke, and J.D. Salinger. Where do you get the inspiration for your books? Mainly from music. Are your books based on real life? Sometimes, the first book is based on the murder of Robert Johnson in 1938, and Dark End of the Street is about the murder of the singer James Carr. Ace Atkins, Photo by N. Jacobs. Do you relate yourself with any of your characters? Yes, Jon Burrows, because he likes Elvis, but I don’t take it as extreme as Jon Burrows does. Have you had other jobs besides being a writer? I worked as a newspaper reporter, writing about crimes, and now I teach Journalism at the University of Mississippi. Have you won any awards? No, but I was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for my work on reporting crime. Why did you move to Mississippi? Because most of my books are set in Mississippi, because the looks of the land and the people are different from the rest of the country, and because Mississippi is a very culturally rich state. Are you working on a new book? Yes, it continues the story of an earlier book, and it’s completely set in New Orleans. Leavin' Trunk Blues. Christmas Eve on the South Side of Chicago: a grey coldness envelops the crumbling housing projects and tattered neighbourhoods. Seventy miles away - locked in a scarred prison cell - waits Ruby Walker, a woman who in every way is the South Side. More than forty years ago, she - like several million blacks during the Great Migration - boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to what she believed was the promised land. She became one of the greatest blues singers the city had ever known - only to lose it all after being . Read More. Christmas Eve on the South Side of Chicago: a grey coldness envelops the crumbling housing projects and tattered neighbourhoods. Seventy miles away - locked in a scarred prison cell - waits Ruby Walker, a woman who in every way is the South Side. More than forty years ago, she - like several million blacks during the Great Migration - boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to what she believed was the promised land. She became one of the greatest blues singers the city had ever known - only to lose it all after being convicted of murdering her lover and producer, Billy Lyons, in September 1959. Decades later, Walker agrees to an interview with Nick Travers, blues historian from Tulane University, but the interview comes with a demand that he check out what she calls the truth behind Lyons's last hours. With a tale studded with irresistible characters like the hateful Stagger Lee, and two beautifully named sociopathic females, Fast Lovin' Fannie and Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, Ace Atkins has produced another atmospheric and entertaining murder-mystery set in the sleazy romance of blues country. Read Less. All Copies ( 20 ) Softcover ( 11 ) Hardcover ( 9 ) Choose Edition ( 3 ) Book Details Seller Sort. 2001, Minotaur Books. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 0312977182 ISBN-13: 9780312977184 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16612678850 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. 2001, Minotaur Books. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 0312977182 ISBN-13: 9780312977184 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16646261441 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. 2001, Minotaur Books. Brownstown, MI, USA. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Very Good Details: ISBN: 0312977182 ISBN-13: 9780312977184 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16610107867 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Very good. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. 2001, Minotaur Books. Halethorpe, MD, USA. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 0312977182 ISBN-13: 9780312977184 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16658296788 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. 2001, Minotaur Books. Halethorpe, MD, USA. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Fair Details: ISBN: 0312977182 ISBN-13: 9780312977184 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16618528658 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Fair. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. 2001, Minotaur Books. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 1841194158 ISBN-13: 9781841194158 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 16431150750 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, and may not include cd-rom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority! ► Contact This Seller. 2001, Minotaur Books. Worcs, UNITED KINGDOM. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Paperback, Very Good Details: ISBN: 1841194158 ISBN-13: 9781841194158 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2001 Language: English Alibris ID: 13823353428 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7�"-9�" tall 1841194158. ► Contact This Seller. 2001, Minotaur Books. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Hardcover, Fine/Like New Details: ISBN: 0312242123 ISBN-13: 9780312242121 Pages: 336 Edition: First Edition Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2000 Language: English Alibris ID: 13483910054 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Fine in Near Fine jacket. Signed by Author Signed and dated (7-1-00, Houston) by the author on the title page. Signature only-no inscription. First printing of first edition. Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket. A quite nice copy, unmarked but for author's signature. Jacket has trace wear at upper corner tips. Original publisher's price intact on front flap. ► Contact This Seller. 2001, Minotaur Books. charlottesville, VA, USA. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0312242123 ISBN-13: 9780312242121 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 2000 Language: English Alibris ID: 16669372830 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99 Two Day Air: $14.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: Good. 2-E/658. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 322 p. Nick Travers Mysteries. ► Contact This Seller. 2001, Minotaur Books. Edition: 2001, Minotaur Books Hardcover, Good Details: ISBN: 0312242123 ISBN-13: 9780312242121 Pages: 336 Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: 07/2000 Language: English Alibris ID: 16550275775 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: $3.99 Trackable Expedited: $7.99. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Leavin Trunk Blues. Condition: Good. A+ Customer service! Satisfaction Guaranteed! Book is in Used-Good condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain limited notes and highlighting. More buying choices from other sellers on AbeBooks. Leavin' Trunk Blues. Ace Atkins. Published by St. Martin's Press, 2001. Used - Softcover Condition: Fair. Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. More buying choices from other sellers on AbeBooks. Leavin' Trunk Blues (A Nick Travers Mystery) Atkins, Ace. Published by Robinson Publishing, 2001. Used - Softcover Condition: Good. Condition: Good. A+ Customer service! Satisfaction Guaranteed! Book is in Used-Good condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain limited notes and highlighting. More buying choices from other sellers on AbeBooks. Leavin Trunk Blues (SIGNED) by Ace Atkins. Used Condition: Like New. Condition: Like New. 1st edition 2000 in like new dust jacket signed by Atkins. Leavin' Trunk Blues. Atkins, Ace. Published by Thomas Dunne / St. Martin's Press, New York, 2000. First Edition Signed. Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Hard Cover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. Signed and dated (7-1-00, Houston) by the author on the title page. Signature only - no inscription. First printing of first edition. Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket. A quite nice copy, unmarked but for author's signature. Jacket has trace wear at upper corner tips. Original publisher's price intact on front flap. Signed by Author. Leavin' Trunk Blues (signed first edition) Atkins, Ace. Published by Minotaur Books, 2000. First Edition Signed. Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. First edition, first printing. Signed by Atkins on title page. A fine copy in a fine mylar protected DJ. See my photos of the book (more available upon request). This book is in my possession and will ship securely packed in a cardboard box. Signed by Author(s).