Ace Atkins Books in Order
Ace Atkins is an American author and former newspaper reporter best known for the Quinn Colson series, the Nick Traverse mysteries, and for continuing the Spenser novels created by Robert B. Parker. His books are inspired by his former life as a crime reporter in Florida. He takes ideas from real cases, local politics, and family secrets to create gripping mysteries that explore what happens when people return to their small towns and discover that things have changed. The first two Quinn Colson novels, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were Edgar Award finalists for Best Novel, and Ace Atkins was later chosen to write ten official Spenser novels after Robert B. Parker’s death.
This page lists all Ace Atkins books in order, including the Nick Travers series, the Quinn Colson series, his Robert B. Parker Spenser novels, standalone crime novels, short stories, anthology appearances, and nonfiction books.
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Latest Ace Atkins Books
Where to Start with Ace Atkins
→ New to Ace Atkins? Start with The Ranger (Quinn Colson #1). It is the easiest way to get to know his own long-running series and his Mississippi crime setting.
→ Want the blues and New Orleans stories? Start with Crossroad Blues (Nick Travers #1), where Travers is still closest to Atkins’s music-history roots.
→ Prefer a standalone novel? Try Don’t Let the Devil Ride for a Memphis private-eye disappearance story, or Everybody Wants to Rule the World for a 1980s Cold War comedy thriller.
→ Reading Atkins’s Spenser books? Start with Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby, the first Spenser novel written by Atkins. If you want Spenser from the very beginning, start with Robert B. Parker’s original books first.
→ Watched Spenser Confidential? The film was inspired by Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, but Lullaby is still the start of Atkins’s own Spenser entries.
Nick Travers Series (Books in Order)
The Nick Travers series follows former professional football player turned academic Nick Travers who now teaches blues history at Tulane University. The series starts with Crossroad Blues, where Travers searches for lost Robert Johnson recordings and a missing colleague. Nick is not a typical private investigator, but he is called an ethnomusicologist, and problem solver, and he keeps getting involved in cases that involve music, old recordings, missing people, and the criminal history of the Louisiana swamps. In short, he is extremely good at finding people and things.
- Crossroad Blues, 1998
- Leavin’ Trunk Blues, 2000
- The Dark End of the Street, 2002
- Dirty South, 2004
- Last Fair Deal Gone Down, 2012
- From Four Til Late, 2025
Quinn Colson Series (Books in Order)
The Quinn Colson series follows ex-U.S. Army Ranger Quinn Colson who returns to his hometown in northwest Mississippi and becomes sheriff in the fictional Tibbehah County to fight local crime and corruption. He comes back from war into a place that has a lot of secrets including local power games, meth, violence, and people who never forget other people’s mistakes. This is the author’s longest series and closest to his Southern crime style. The first two books, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were both Edgar Award finalists for Best Novel.
- The Ranger, 2011
- The Lost Ones, 2012
- The Broken Places, 2013
- The Forsaken, 2014
- The Redeemers, 2015
- The Innocents, 2016
- The Fallen, 2017
- The Sinners, 2018
- The Shameless, 2019
- The Revelators, 2020
- The Heathens, 2021
Quinn Colson Short Stories
- Kudzu, 2025
Jason Colson Short Stories
- Stuntman, 2025
Spenser Series (Books in Order)
Ace Atkins continued Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series after Parker’s death, writing ten official novels about the Boston private investigator. In these novels, Spenser remains the same character we know from Parker: a Boston PI with his own moral code, his longtime partner Hawk, and psychological Susan Silverman also part of the cast. Ace Atkins continued the same world without including any of his own series characters or ideas.
- Lullaby, 2012
- Wonderland (also titled Spenser Confidential, 2013
- Cheap Shot, 2014
- Kickback, 2015
- Slow Burn, 2016
- Little White Lies, 2017
- Old Black Magic, 2018
- Angel Eyes, 2019
- Someone to Watch Over Me, 2021
- Bye Bye Baby, 2022
Standalone Novels
- White Shadow, 2006
- Wicked City, 2008
- Devil’s Garden, 2009
- Infamous, 2010
- Don’t Let the Devil Ride, 2024
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World, 2025
Short Stories
- The Havana Run, 2024
Anthologies
- Live Noir or Die Trying, 2010
- Crimespree Magazine #42, 2015
- New Orleans Noir, 2012
- Crimespree Magazine #60, 2015
- New Orleans Noir 2, 2016
- Mississippi Noir, 2016
- The Highway Kind, 2016
- Mojo Rising 2, 2017
- Crimespree Magazine #66, 2017
- Mystery Writers of America Presents: Odd Partners, 2019
- Tampa Bay Noir, 2020
- Birds of Prey: The Harlan Coben Challenge, 2022 (with Harlan Coben)
- Best Crime Stories of the Year 4, 2024
Non-Fiction Books
- Sunset Park, 2025
Ace Atkins Biography
Ace Atkins is an American crime author, short story writer, and former journalist, who also continued the Spenser series started by Robert B. Parker.
Official website: aceatkins.com
Ace Atkins was born in 1970 in Troy, Alabama. He received a football scholarship to Auburn University, where he studied screenwriting. He played defensive end at the university and was part of Auburn’s undefeated 1993 football team. After graduation, to refine his writing skills, he started working as a journalist before turning to full-time writing.
Between 1996 and 2001 he worked at the Tampa Tribune, covering cases as a crime reporter. During this period, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and published his first novels, Crossroad Blues and Leavin’ Trunk Blues, which introduced Nick Travers, a former football player and blues historian, who would become the main character of Ace Atkins’s first series.
In 2006, he published White Shadow, a standalone novel based on his research into the unsolved, forgotten murder of Charlie Wall, the crime boss of Tampa, in 1955. This book helped him become an established full-time novelist. He also wrote Wicked City, Devil’s Garden, and Infamous, several of which also use real crimes or real historical figures as starting points. In 2011, he started the Quinn Colson series with The Ranger, about an Army Ranger who returned home to Mississippi and later became sheriff of fictional Tibbehah County. This became the author’s main series, and its first two books, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were Edgar Award finalists for Best Novel.
Also in 2011, the estate of Robert B. Parker selected Ace Atkins to continue the Spenser series, for which he wrote ten novels in Parker’s known writing style. He wrote the ten Spenser books, beginning with Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby and ending with Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby, before he moved away from the series.
Ace Atkins also wrote several standalone crime novels and short stories, including Don’t Let the Devil Ride, From Four Til Late, Stuntman, and Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Atkins has received the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award, the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer, and induction into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his family, and he is a regular contributor to the Outside magazine, writing essays and investigative pieces on topics like travel, outdoors, and gear.
Alongside his fiction work, Ace Atkins continued to work on occasion as a journalist, including writing for the Outside magazine.
Ace Atkins Book Adaptations
- Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland – adapted into the Netflix film Spenser Confidential (2020)
Ace Atkins Awards and Honors
Major Awards and Honors
- Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn – Scribe Award for Best Original Novel: General (2017)
- Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award (2025)
- Alabama Writers Hall of Fame (2025)
- Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer (2026)
Nominations and Shortlists
- White Shadow – Barry Award for Best Novel (2007)
- Last Fair Deal Gone Down – Anthony Award for Best Short Story (2010)
- Last Fair Deal Gone Down – Edgar Award for Best Short Story (2010)
- Last Fair Deal Gone Down – Macavity Award for Best Mystery Short Story (2010)
- The Ranger – Edgar Award for Best Novel (2012)
- LuRobert B. Parker’s Lullaby – Shamus Award for Best PI Novel (2013)
- The Lost Ones – Edgar Award for Best Novel (2013)
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller (2025)
LOVE the way Ace Atkins has continued the Spenser series. Kudos to the Parker Estate for selecting him. And, with a preference for audio books, I’m so glad Joe Montegna has continued to read.