Don’t Let The Devil Ride

Addison McKellar knows her marriage to Dean isn’t perfect, but they are happy enough with each other and their beautiful children, a son and a daughter. After a business trip, Dean never comes home. Addison’s emotions are a mix of shock, annoyance, and disgust. Hiring private detective, Porter Hayes who’s a friend of Addison’s father, Porter & Addison find out that Dean is anything but the legitimate businessman he presented himself to be to the public. Dean has been mixed up with some dangerous people and those same people would do anything to kill his family to settle the score.

Plot, Characters & Writing

The idea for the plot was at least great. I did start to speed through it at first, until I couldn’t. There were other things I would rather have spent my time doing or other books I would have rather focused more on. I liked the characters of Porter Hayes & Addison McKellar, the other characters I could have done without, and the book would have been better. The biggest flaw was there were too many characters, and the story was confusing to follow at times. It’s such a shame because this is my first time reading anything by Ace Atkins and I thought I would like it since it’s a mystery and the theme is how well do, we really know our loved ones. One character that I felt really didn’t fit in with the story was Joanna, this current has been who starred in some films with Elvis and some other actors of the time. Joanna reminded me too much of Joanna Lumley’s character Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous. Granted Absolutely Fabulous is a great British comedy, but the characters of Edina, Saffron & Patsy don’t belong in a mystery type story like this. 

Overall

Overall, it has potential at least, but unfortunately it fell flat. I think if the book focused on 2 or 3 characters it would have been a better story. I’m sure Ace has better stories that I might like.  Don’t Let The Devil Ride will be available on June 25^th of this year.