Ace Atkins isn’t getting any younger, but he doesn’t seem to be getting any older either. THE HEATHENS is the newly published 11th book in his critically acclaimed Quinn Colson series, and he continues to perform yeoman’s work in keeping Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series alive. Here he gives readers a tale that should please longtime fans and newcomers alike.

Quinn Colson is the sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, but as a teenager he was well known to law enforcement in all of the worst ways. A stint in the Army Rangers shaped his resolve but not to the extent that he forgot who he was and where he came from. So when Gina Byrd, a local hardcore drug addict, disappears and is believed to be dead, Quinn is inclined to keep an open mind regarding the legally presumed innocence of Gina’s daughter, TJ. The problem is that TJ is a 16-year-old wild child who has tangled with her mother physically and emotionally for years.

"THE HEATHENS may put one in the mind of THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER in all of the best ways... Atkins’ straightforward plotting and well-turned prose will keep you in your seat reading..."

Gina’s remains are ultimately located, and it appears that TJ is responsible for her death. TJ, her boyfriend (who also is no stranger to law enforcement), her best friend and her brother all hit the highway in a journey that takes them in fits and starts across multiple states with U.S. Marshal Lillie Virgil in pursuit. Virgil is Quinn’s friend and former deputy, but she is not quite as willing as he is to be persuaded of TJ's innocence. Quinn is not about to let a guilty party go free, but he is not entirely convinced that TJ, as problematic as she has been, committed the murder.

In THE HEATHENS, readers are given just a bit more information than the principals, so a great deal of suspense comes from whether TJ and her little band of desperados will be caught on their interstate flight and who will nab them. Virgil is no wallflower, but the actual killers are a pair of memorable characters and are capable of murdering again if it suits their needs. Things sort themselves out in one of Atkins’ best final vignettes, followed by what amounts to an intriguing prelude of what is to be expected in the next installment of the Colson saga.

THE HEATHENS may put one in the mind of THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER in all of the best ways, especially with its “innocents on the run” who are being pursued by both sides of the law. Atkins continues to pepper his narrative and dialogue with homespun and regional colloquialisms from a seemingly and hopefully bottomless well. They are worth the price of admission all by themselves, though Atkins’ straightforward plotting and well-turned prose will keep you in your seat reading, which is as it should be.