Dark End of the Street

By: Ace Atkins

Narrated by: Dion Graham

With a precise eye for detail, Atkins takes Nick Travers on a journey into the hidden pockets of New Orleans, the battered roadhouses and truck stops of Mississippi, and the streets of Memphis that only an insider could know.

The plan is simple. All Nick Travers, a former professional football player turned professor, has to do is drive up Highway 61 from New Orleans to Memphis and track down the lost brother of one of his best friends. But as Travers knows, these simple jobs seldom turn out smoothly.

His friend’s brother is Clyde James, who, in 1968, was one of the finest soul singers Memphis had to offer. But when James’s wife and close friend were murdered, his life was shattered. He turned to the streets, where, decades ago, he disappeared. Travers’s search for the singer soon leads him to the casinos in Tunica, Mississippi, and converges with the agenda of the Dixie Mafia, a zealot gubernatorial candidate linked to a neo-Confederacy movement, and an obsessed killer who thinks he has a true spiritual link to the late Elvis Presley. Welcome to Ace Atkins’s new South, where you won’t find a single southern belle or dripping magnolia.

“When all is said and done, Dark End sheds light on the underbelly of politics, racism and the junking of American culture. Atkins is an astute observer of life as well as a singular voice in fiction."—USA Today

©2002 Ace Atkins; "The Dark End of the Street" ©1967 (Renewed 1995) Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc.; "Still Here" ©1994 by the estate of Langston Hughes; "Polk Salad Annie" ©1968 (Renewed 1996) Temi Combine Inc. All rights controlled by Combine Music Corp. and administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc. (P)2024 Recorded Books

Interesting characters & plot

The plot is not predictable and keeps you guessing. Multiple back stories deftly sprinkled throughout the plot even for the quirky bad guys keeps you listening. Likeable protagonist and his crew.