Don't Let the Devil Ride: A Novel
“An instant Southern noir classic” –S.A. Cosby
S.A. Cosby meets Don Winslow in the breakout thriller from New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins. A Memphis woman hires a PI to find her missing husband, only to discover that he is involved in a dangerous web of international intrigue—and she and her children are now at risk.
Hell is empty…and Addison McKellar’s husband is missing.
Addison McKellar isn’t clueless—she knows she and her husband Dean don’t have the perfect marriage—but she’s still shocked when he completely vanishes from her life. At first Addison is annoyed, but as days stretch into a week and she’s repeatedly stonewalled by Dean’s friends and associates, her frustration turns into genuine alarm. When even the police seem dismissive of her concerns, Addison turns to her father’s old friend, legendary Memphis PI Porter Hayes.
Porter and Addison begin to dig deeper into Dean’s affairs and quickly discover that he was never the hardworking business owner and family man he pretended to be. As they piece together the connections between a hook-handed mercenary, one of Elvis’s former leading ladies, and a man posing as an FBI agent, it becomes clear that Dean was deeply enmeshed in a high-stakes web of international intrigue, and Porter and Addison aren’t the only ones looking for him.
Dean angered some very dangerous people before he disappeared—people who have already killed to get what they want—and they won’t hesitate to come after his family to even the score.
Don’t Let the Devil Ride is a thrilling adventure about what can happen when you pull back the curtain on your life. Ace Atkins, long known for gritty Southern noir with a witty edge, has crafted an ambitious, globe-hopping story that comes home to Memphis in explosive fashion.
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Community Reviews
As a big fan of Ace Atkin’s Quinn Colson series, I have to say that I’ve been a little disappointed that after three years, he hasn’t put out another Quinn Colson installment. Hopefully, he isn’t abandoning the series and just needed a break to write some other stuff for a while. I like Atkins; he’s a good writer and storyteller. Anyway, I thought it was time to check out some of his other stuff and this was a good place to start, plus I liked the title. Got to give props to authors who come up with good titles. This story has that same classic southern tone as that old bluesy gospel song of the same name. If you’ve never heard it, google it and you’ll know what I mean. Atkins is really good at depicting what life in the south is really like as only a real southerner can.
The book summary basically just introduces the primary storyline and two of the MC’s. After a week of no contact from her husband, Dean, Addison, waking from a drunken haze, decides to find out where he is and goes down to his office only to discover that it’s not his office and hasn’t been for more than two years. In her drunken rage to find out what’s going on, she gets arrested. Initially, Addison, a rich, alcoholic, miserable, housewife and angry mother kind of irked me, and she never really came out of the fog of alcohol that she was steeped in for most of the story. Her dying daddy, Sami Hassan, refers her to Porter Haynes, a well-known Memphis PI that he knows from back in the day and tells her Porter can find out what happened to Dean.
Porter, widowed and nearing 70, now spends most of his time chasing cheating spouses, and agrees to help Addison find her husband. There are some references that there is definitely some kind of history between Porter and Sami, but the reader never does find out. In the meantime, there is Joanna, an aging actress who found a friend murdered in his shop, and she proceeds to take an envelope she thought was money but turns out to be some documentation for a shipment. Oh, and she apparently is having an affair with Dean, who she knows as Peter. Also, the missing Dean/Peter is revealed to be some kind of international arms dealer who is now being hunted by a swindled, one-armed mercenary. Lmao Not sure if Atkins intended this to be a comedy, but it certainly had me rolling my eyes and cracking up at times. None of this is a spoiler since it all happened in the first 20% of the story.
The story chapters flip back and forth between eight different characters. Having just recently read another story with a really large cast of characters, I have to say that this is not my favorite type of storytelling. With a large cast of characters, it becomes increasingly challenging to provide any decent characterization for most of the characters. More times than not, what ends up happening is that most of the characters get no more than a superficial level of character development. For someone like me, who considers characterization one of the most important elements of storytelling, this does not bode well.
It's well into the second half that all the craziness of the first half collides into kind of an explosion of activity and insanity and all of Porter’s investigations reveal all the crazy details and connections. There were a lot of scary and intense scenes with some really graphic ones as well. However, I LOVED the final scene!!! Whoo ya!!!
This was one wild story! As expected, the characterization was ok for a couple of characters, and extremely thin for others. The pace and storyline were steady and entertaining, respectively. The writing was pretty good, once again, I like Atkins; he’s a good writer and storyteller. Anyway, I’m looking at an overall rating of 3.9 that I will be rounding up to a 4star rating. Not sure if this is a debut of a new series, and I’m not sure who the MC would be, maybe Porter but at his age, not sure how exciting that would be. Atkins could also chose to focus on a younger Porter in his nefarious heyday; that might be interesting. I want to thank NetGalley and William Morrow for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #WilliamMorrow #DontLettheDevilRide
The book summary basically just introduces the primary storyline and two of the MC’s. After a week of no contact from her husband, Dean, Addison, waking from a drunken haze, decides to find out where he is and goes down to his office only to discover that it’s not his office and hasn’t been for more than two years. In her drunken rage to find out what’s going on, she gets arrested. Initially, Addison, a rich, alcoholic, miserable, housewife and angry mother kind of irked me, and she never really came out of the fog of alcohol that she was steeped in for most of the story. Her dying daddy, Sami Hassan, refers her to Porter Haynes, a well-known Memphis PI that he knows from back in the day and tells her Porter can find out what happened to Dean.
Porter, widowed and nearing 70, now spends most of his time chasing cheating spouses, and agrees to help Addison find her husband. There are some references that there is definitely some kind of history between Porter and Sami, but the reader never does find out. In the meantime, there is Joanna, an aging actress who found a friend murdered in his shop, and she proceeds to take an envelope she thought was money but turns out to be some documentation for a shipment. Oh, and she apparently is having an affair with Dean, who she knows as Peter. Also, the missing Dean/Peter is revealed to be some kind of international arms dealer who is now being hunted by a swindled, one-armed mercenary. Lmao Not sure if Atkins intended this to be a comedy, but it certainly had me rolling my eyes and cracking up at times. None of this is a spoiler since it all happened in the first 20% of the story.
The story chapters flip back and forth between eight different characters. Having just recently read another story with a really large cast of characters, I have to say that this is not my favorite type of storytelling. With a large cast of characters, it becomes increasingly challenging to provide any decent characterization for most of the characters. More times than not, what ends up happening is that most of the characters get no more than a superficial level of character development. For someone like me, who considers characterization one of the most important elements of storytelling, this does not bode well.
It's well into the second half that all the craziness of the first half collides into kind of an explosion of activity and insanity and all of Porter’s investigations reveal all the crazy details and connections. There were a lot of scary and intense scenes with some really graphic ones as well. However, I LOVED the final scene!!! Whoo ya!!!
This was one wild story! As expected, the characterization was ok for a couple of characters, and extremely thin for others. The pace and storyline were steady and entertaining, respectively. The writing was pretty good, once again, I like Atkins; he’s a good writer and storyteller. Anyway, I’m looking at an overall rating of 3.9 that I will be rounding up to a 4star rating. Not sure if this is a debut of a new series, and I’m not sure who the MC would be, maybe Porter but at his age, not sure how exciting that would be. Atkins could also chose to focus on a younger Porter in his nefarious heyday; that might be interesting. I want to thank NetGalley and William Morrow for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #WilliamMorrow #DontLettheDevilRide