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. 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.
We lists all Ace Atkins books in order, including the Nick Travers series, the Quinn Colson series, the new Porter Hayes series, his Robert B. Parker Spenser novels, standalone crime novels, short stories, anthologies and nonfiction books.
A printable book list is available below. You can print it or save it as a PDF.
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Latest and Upcoming Ace Atkins Books
- The Midnight Hour – Porter Hayes #2, TBA
Where to Start with Ace Atkins
- New to the Quinn Colson books? Start with The Ranger. Atkins has said the main events in the novels largely stand on their own, but longer story arcs build across the series, so beginning with the first book gives you more of the continuing story.
- Want the blues and New Orleans? Start with Crossroad Blues, the first Nick Travers novel.
- Prefer one book rather than a series? White Shadow is one of Atkins’s fact-based historical crime novels, while Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a Cold War comedy thriller set in 1985.
- Reading Atkins’s Spenser novels? Start with Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby. If you want Spenser from the very beginning, start with Robert B. Parker’s original books instead.
Nick Travers Series (Books in Order)
Nick Travers is a former professional football player turned academic 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.
- Crossroad Blues, 1998 Amazon
- Leavin’ Trunk Blues, 2000 Amazon
- The Dark End of the Street, 2002 Amazon
- Dirty South, 2004 Amazon
Nick Traverse Short Stories
- Last Fair Deal Gone Down, 2009 Amazon
- Nine Below Zero, 2010 (published in Delta Blues)
- From Four Til Late, 2019 Amazon
Quinn Colson Series (Books in Order)
Quinn Colson returns to fictional Tibbehah County, Mississippi, after serving as an Army Ranger and later becomes the county sheriff. The first two books, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were both Edgar Award finalists for Best Novel.
- The Ranger, 2011 Amazon
- The Lost Ones, 2012 Amazon
- The Broken Places, 2013 Amazon
- The Forsaken, 2014 Amazon
- The Redeemers, 2015 Amazon
- The Innocents, 2016 Amazon
- The Fallen, 2017 Amazon
- The Sinners, 2018 Amazon
- The Shameless, 2019 Amazon
- The Revelators, 2020 Amazon
- The Heathens, 2021 Amazon
Quinn Colson Short Stories
- Kudzu, 2025 Amazon
Jason Colson Short Stories
- Stuntman, 2023 (later published as Stuntman: A Jason Colson Story (2025) Amazon
Porter Hayes Series (Books in Order)
Memphis private investigator Porter Hayes first appears in Don’t Let the Devil Ride. Ace Atkins has since signed for two more Porter Hayes novels.
- Don’t Let the Devil Ride, 2024 Amazon
- The Midnight Hour, TBA
Spenser Series (Books in Order)
After Robert B. Parker’s death, his estate selected Ace Atkins to continue the Spenser series. Atkins wrote ten Spenser novels, beginning with Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby in 2012 and ending with Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby in 2022. The list below includes all Atkins’s Spenser books. For the full handover series history, including Helen Brann’s completion of Parker’s unfinished Silent Night (Spenser #41), see the Spenser author handover timeline.
- Lullaby, 2012 Amazon
- Wonderland (reissued as Spenser Confidential for the 2020 Netflix film), 2013 Amazon
- Cheap Shot, 2014 Amazon
- Kickback, 2015 Amazon
- Slow Burn, 2016 Amazon
- Little White Lies, 2017 Amazon
- Old Black Magic, 2018 Amazon
- Angel Eyes, 2019 Amazon
- Someone to Watch Over Me, 2021 Amazon
- Bye Bye Baby, 2022 Amazon
Standalone Novels
- White Shadow, 2006 Amazon
- Wicked City, 2008 Amazon
- Devil’s Garden, 2009 Amazon
- Infamous, 2010 Amazon
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World, 2025 Amazon
Short Stories
- The Havana Run, 2024 Amazon
Anthologies
- New Orleans Noir, 2007 – includes Angola South Amazon
- Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying, 2010 – includes El Conejo Amazon
- Delta Blues, 2010 – includes Nine Below Zero Amazon
- New Orleans Noir 2: The Classic, 2016 – includes Last Fair Deal Gone Down Amazon
- Mississippi Noir, 2016 – includes Combustible Amazon
- The Highway Kind, 2016 – includes Apache Youth Amazon
- Mojo Rising 2, 2017 – includes The Long Last Ride of El Canejo Amazon
- Mystery Writers of America Presents: Odd Partners, 2019 – includes From Four Till Late Amazon
- Tampa Bay Noir, 2020 – includes Tall, Dark, and Handsome Amazon
- Birds of Prey: The Harlan Coben Challenge, 2022 (with Harlan Coben) Amazon
- The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2024, 2024 – UK title: Best Crime Stories of the Year Volume 4, includes Stunts Amazon
Non-Fiction Books
Ace Atkins Book Adaptations
- Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland – adapted into the Netflix film Spenser Confidential (2020)
About Ace Atkins
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 graduated from Auburn University in 1994 with a degree in mass communications after playing defensive end for the Tigers, including the undefeated 1993 team.
He started working as a journalist writing freelance reports for the St. Petersburg times, and between 1996 and 2001 he worked the crime beat at the Tampa Tribune. His investigation into the unsolved 1955 murder of Tampa crime figure Charlie Wall was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and later became the basis for his first standalone novel White Shadow, which was published in 2006.
Ace Atkins published Crossroad Blues in 1998, introducing Nick Travers, a former football player and blues historian, who would become the main character of Ace Atkins’s first series.
He then wrote four historical crime novels that are not grouped on his official site as the Crime Classics. 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. The first book was Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby and the last Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby, before he moved away from the series.
His latest series is Porter Hayes, which began with Don’t Let the Devil Ride in 2024, and his latest standalone novel Everybody Wants to Rule the World.
Ace 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 and Garden & Gun.
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)
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.