The Fallen by Ace Atkins

c.2017, Putnam

$27/$36 Canada

358 pages

People talk. Yammer, yammer, yammer; that’s how it is. A shred of story starts and it doesn’t go far before it’s blown up to big proportions and even bigger half-truths.

And yet, people talk – but in the new novel, The Fallen by Ace Atkins, what they’re saying isn’t quite enough.

Ninety seconds: That’s all the time Rick Wilcox allowed for a bank robbery. He and his soldier, Opie, donned rubber masks, entered the bank, shot a few bullets and took whatever armored-car deposit they knew had just been made. In 90 seconds or less, they were out the door and into whatever vehicle Sgt. Jonas Cord had stolen.

Gone, until the next time, in the next town.

Tibbehah County, Miss.: Sheriff Quinn Colson hadn’t heard about the robberies until they hit his hometown of Jericho, but he had to hand it to the thieves – they were as clever as they were quick. Their latest heist, the one at Jericho First National Bank, wasn’t going to be their last; of that, Quinn was certain.

These guys reminded him of his time in the military. They sure operated like Rangers. But although the robbery happened in Tibbehah County, it wasn’t so much Quinn’s problem as it was for the feds.

Quinn’s issues were a little more homegrown: petty theft, drunkenness and trying to shut down the local strip club on orders from the new leader of local government. The owner of Vienna’s Place, Fanny Hathcock, was about to tangle with the wrong official and she likely didn’t even realize it.

But Fanny Hathcock was no pushover. With flame-red hair, low-cut dresses and velvet pumps, her specialties included money-laundering, prostitution and providing girls for other operations up and down the South.

She was well aware of where the power lay in the Mid-South and she had contacts from Florida to Memphis to New Orleans, in and out of prison. That was all going to make Fanny Hathcock very rich and very happy.