With overwhelming acclaim from reviewers, readers, and peers alike, first-time novelist Ace Atkins hits a high note with Nick Travers, mystery fiction's first blues hero. An ex-football pro, Nick's days are now as languid as the Big Easy itself-he teaches the History of Blues at Tulane and occasionally plays the harmonica at JoJo's Blues Bar in the French Quarter. But when a colleague disappears into the Mississippi Delta while researching 1930s blues legend Robert Johnson, Nick's life takes a tailspin. On the trail of the lost professor, Nick also delves into Johnson's mysterious death, and suddenly finds himself with two baffling mysteries on his hands, each more convoluted than the mighty Mississippi.

In the sequel to the critically acclaimed Crossroad Blues, Nick Travers becomes involved in the forty-year-old murder of a blues record producer, a crime for which the victim's potentially innocent lover, Ruby Walker, has spent forty years in prison. Reprint.

Former pro football player-turned-college professor Nick Travers came of age in a smoky New Orleans bar—and he owes a monumental debt to its owners, Jo Jo and Loretta, who took him under their wings. Now Loretta wants Nick to locate her missing brother, the legendary singer Clyde James, who vanished in the sixties after his wife and a band member were murdered. The Dixie Mafia, a blonde bombshell grifter, and an Elvis-worshipping hitman are suddenly interested in the soul man as well, and Nick can't help wondering why. The answer lies somewhere in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta, where casino money, dirty politics, and old secrets bubble to the surface of the New South.

A gritty and atmospheric thriller by a talented young writer. Tulane professor and problem solver Nick Travers is minding his own business when a friend from his college football days asks a favour. Teddy Paris is a record producer and his biggest rap star, a kid from the projects named Alias, needs help. Somebody has ripped off Alias' assets. Always ready to bail out a buddy, Nick dives in, but the closer he gets to unmasking the villain, the more danger he unleashes until his own life is on the line.

This Edgar Award-nominated short story featuring New Orleans music historian/detective Nick Travers was written nearly 15 years ago—and then forgotten by author Ace Atkins. The story was rescued from an old floppy disc and first published in 2008, in a special, 10th anniversary edition of Crossroad Blues. To Atkins' surprise, that edition earned an Edgar Award nomination for the forgotten Nick Travers tale. The story shows Nick at his in New Orleans, at JoJo's Blues Bar, helping an old friend, challenging the powerful, and getting in way over his head.