The Quinn Colson series just keeps getting better and better. Its blend of country noir and badass humor is as smooth as three fingers of Gentleman Jack, and its ensemble cast is uniformly rich ... Atkins throws [a] gallimaufry of characters together in a roller coaster of a plot that’s alternately blood-splattered and tenderhearted, the latter driven by the fact that Quinn’s imminent wedding looms over the whole shebang. If you like country noir, and you haven’t visited Tibbehah County, you’re overdue for a road trip.
There’s a lot going on in The Sinners ... The Sinners has plenty of breathless suspense and explosive violence, but it’s also a funny book. The series has always had its funny moments, but maybe wisecracking Spenser is influencing Quinn, or maybe the wedding lightens things up. This whole novel is laced with humor, much of it mordant and profane.
Atkins constructs his series to be equally a look at the criminal invasion in Quinn’s part of Mississippi and a story about families – a technique that provides balance to The Sinners ... Atkins maintains the sense of community that flows through [Tibbehah County]. The Sinners showcases the beauty of Mississippi, from its fields to the winding Natchez Trace ... Atkins, who also is continuing the late Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, delivers a solid thriller with The Sinners, while leaving plenty of story threads for the ninth installment in this series.
Ace Atkins has built a following of diehard readers who can’t get enough of his particular brand of southern fried homicide, and The Sinners makes it easy to see why. Few authors are able to capture the south the way Atkins does, and his usage of the third-person close point of view is perfect for this type of dark and gritty story that sucks readers in and doesn’t let go ... Between his work on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series and his own Quinn Colson franchise, Ace Atkins has quickly become one of the genre’s top must-read, can’t-miss authors, and The Sinners is the obvious frontrunner for best southern crime novel of the year.
Solid if relatively uneventful ... Not a whole lot of interest follows. The entry works best as a long setup for major developments promised for book nine.
Though it’s amusing on its own terms, the constant infighting among lowlifes keeps this installment below Atkins’ high standard. When bad guys are mostly targeting other bad guys, there’s just not that much for good guys to do besides stand aside and watch the carnage.
The Sinners is the latest in Ace Atkins’ expert and reliable series about Quinn Colson, the resourceful sheriff of (fictional) Tibbehah County — the 'armpit' of Mississippi, as Atkins styles it ... The prospect of family life causes the cop to reconsider his dangerous and all-consuming job, but change isn’t going to happen soon ... The Sinners may not be the best in the series, and (as with most series) neophytes might want to start at the beginning: the characters get more richly developed as things progress. But this is still an exciting and often darkly funny ride.
