Synopses & Reviews
In Die Hard style, Silas Cade takes his atypical brand of "auditing" from Wall Street to Main Street Fans of Lee Child's Jack Reacher and Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp will want to add Silas Cade to their lineup. Cade, the tough-guy auditor antihero introduced in Clawback, employs a brand of financial reform that comes with plenty of firepower. Needing a respite from Wall Street, Cade jumps at a job opportunity in western Pennsylvania—but finds that Main Street is just as dirty.
The job seems easy enough—check out a Pittsburgh manufacturer and file a report—but Cade quickly discovers corruption at every level. His revelations catch the attentions of hair-trigger Russian mobsters and a blonde assassin named Harmony. Cade’s estranged brother is dragged into the fray as the tension builds to bullet-riddled showdowns across defunct steel mills, forests, and Appalachian fracking fields.
Cooper again delivers a timely plot involving Wall Street greed, financial corruption, and the plight of blue-collar workers.
Review
“I have always been impressed with (jealous of) how easy Ace Atkins makes it look.
The Ranger is by far his best work…I hope Quinn Colson and Lillie Virgil stick around for a good long time.”—Michael Connelly
“Atkins has written a bunch of great thrillers, but this one sets up a series that should push him to the top of the bestseller list.”—John Sandford “A dark, headlong crime story set in the Mississippi hill country and teeming with corrupt officials, murderous meth dealers and Southern femmes fatales.”— St. Petersburg Times
Review
Praise for CLAWBACK:
"This reads like a made-for-TV movie with a pleasing mix of action, sleuthing, clever tricks, a slow-developing romance, and far-out chase scenes. A great start for what one hopes is a series character, this will appeal to anyone who likes a fast-moving thriller leavened by wit.”— Library Journal
"Cooper, 'a former financial executive,' vividly renders a gossip-fueled world where self-important one-percenters begin to carry guns to protect themselves from murderous “peasants,” anarchists, and jihadists. Clawback has intriguing characters, knowing insights into the Wall Street demimonde, a blistering pace, lots of action, and some over-the-top derring-do that may attract Hollywood."— Booklist (starred review)
“By mid-tale, Cade’s gone hand-to-hand more than once, dodged a shoot-out and arm-wrestled a helicopter before jumping into the Hudson River to save himself. Cooper’s characters will probably populate sequels… There’s much snappy, half-cynical repartee reminiscent of 1930s Hollywood cinema, including snarks about the necessity of gun control, and a firefight aboard a mega-yacht followed by a jet ski-Zodiac water pursuit. Cooper sets the action in New York City, a locale he has down pat, from neighborhood diners to the only place it’s legal to live on your boat. Arm a Hollywood hero with a Beretta and disposable cell, point him at a Gordon Gekko–type, and this book’s big screen ready.”— Kirkus
"Engaging ... Cooper clearly knows the investment world.”— Publishers Weekly
"Mike Cooper’s Clawback is fantastic. If Tom Wolfe could channel Robert Ludlum, he would have written this novel. Think Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Bourne Identity and then kick it way, way up. Action, suspense, and tons of insider information. This is my kind of thriller and I can't wait for the next one. If you like Nelson DeMille, you will love Mike Cooper."— Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Full Black
“Clawback is a great guilty pleasure. It has vivid but convincing action, a sympathetic protagonist with a specialty we haven't seen before, and plentiful antagonists we all have reason to despise. Buy it.”— Thomas Perry, Edgar Award-winning and bestselling author of The Butcher’s Boy
"Sharp, invigorating and remarkably assured, Mike Cooper's financial thriller Clawback has done the unthinkable: it's made Oliver Stone's Wall Street look downright naïve.” — Josh Bazell, author of the New York Times bestselling Beat the Reaper
“Better than a bank with wheels, Clawback reads like a rollercoaster on a financial graph! Mike Cooper’s debut novel has a narrative that’s breezy and light, kind of like the fire that backdrafts under a door before it blows off the hinges.”— Craig Johnson, bestselling author of Hell is Empty
"Clawback is smart and savvy, and paced like a bull market rally! Silas Cade is part Jack Reacher, part Seal Team Six in the Madoffian canyons of power and greed."— Andrew Gross, bestselling author of Reckless
"Intriguing...Clawback is definitely worth the investment."— Associated Press
"Required reading"— New York Post Praise for Clawback
Review
“This reads like a made-for-TV movie with a pleasing mix of action, sleuthing, clever tricks, a slow-developing romance, and far-out chase scenes. A great start for what one hopes is a series character, this will appeal to anyone who likes a fast-moving thriller leavened by wit.”
Review
"Cooper, 'a former financial executive,' vividly renders a gossip-fueled world where self-important one-percenters begin to carry guns to protect themselves from murderous “peasants,” anarchists, and jihadists. Clawback has intriguing characters, knowing insights into the Wall Street demimonde, a blistering pace, lots of action, and some over-the-top derring-do that may attract Hollywood."
Review
“By mid-tale, Cade’s gone hand-to-hand more than once, dodged a shoot-out and arm-wrestled a helicopter before jumping into the Hudson River to save himself. Cooper’s characters will probably populate sequels… There’s much snappy, half-cynical repartee reminiscent of 1930s Hollywood cinema, including snarks about the necessity of gun control, and a firefight aboard a mega-yacht followed by a jet ski-Zodiac water pursuit. Cooper sets the action in New York City, a locale he has down pat, from neighborhood diners to the only place it’s legal to live on your boat. Arm a Hollywood hero with a Beretta and disposable cell, point him at a Gordon Gekko–type, and this book’s big screen ready.”
Review
"Engaging ... Cooper clearly knows the investment world.”
Review
"Mike Cooper’s Clawback is fantastic. If Tom Wolfe could channel Robert Ludlum, he would have written this novel. Think Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Bourne Identity and then kick it way, way up. Action, suspense, and tons of insider information. This is my kind of thriller and I can't wait for the next one. If you like Nelson DeMille, you will love Mike Cooper."
Review
“Clawback is a great guilty pleasure. It has vivid but convincing action, a sympathetic protagonist with a specialty we haven't seen before, and plentiful antagonists we all have reason to despise. Buy it.”
Review
"Sharp, invigorating and remarkably assured, Mike Cooper's financial thriller Clawback has done the unthinkable: it's made Oliver Stone's Wall Street look downright naïve.”
Review
“Better than a bank with wheels, Clawback reads like a rollercoaster on a financial graph! Mike Cooper’s debut novel has a narrative that’s breezy and light, kind of like the fire that backdrafts under a door before it blows off the hinges.”
Review
"Clawback is smart and savvy, and paced like a bull market rally! Silas Cade is part Jack Reacher, part Seal Team Six in the Madoffian canyons of power and greed."
Synopsis
After years of war, Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home to the rugged, rough hill country of northeast Mississippi to find his native Tibbehah County overrun with corruption, decay, meth runners, and violence. His uncle, the longtime county sheriff, is dead. A suicide, he’s told, but others—like tomboy deputy Lillie Virgil—whisper murder.
In the days that follow, it’s up to Colson to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and himself. And once it’s discovered, there’s no going back for this real hero of the Deep South.
Synopsis
From the acclaimed, award-winning author comes an extraordinary new series about a real hero, and the real Deep South. "With terrific, inflected characters, and a dark, subtle sense of place and history, The Ranger is an exceptional novel." -John Sandford
"One of the best crime writers at work today." -Michael Connelly
Ace Atkins returns with an extraordinary new series. Northeast Mississippi, hill country, rugged and notorious for outlaws since the Civil War, where killings are as commonplace as in the Old West. To Quinn Colson, it's home-but not the home he left when he went to Afghanistan.
Now an Army Ranger, he returns to a place overrun by corruption, and finds his uncle, the county sheriff, dead-a suicide, he's told, but others whisper murder. In the days that follow, it will be up to Colson to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and not least about himself. And once the truth is discovered, there is no turning back.
Synopsis
Someone is killing off Wall Street's shadiest financiers, and only Silas Cade can get to the bottom of it With breakneck pacing, nonstop action, and cutting-edge details of today’s financial intelligence technology, Clawback offers a thrill-a-minute narrative set in the world of Too Big to Fail. Silas Cade, a black-ops vet and gray-zone contractor, is no stranger to gunslinging or shady finance. After coming home from America’s wars abroad, he becomes an “accountant”—the go-to for Wall Street financiers who need jobs done quickly, quietly, and by any means necessary. Hired by a major player to visit a tanking hedge fund manager and extract ten million dollars in clawback—the mandatory return of compensation paid on a deal that goes bad—Silas instead discovers that someone is killing off bankers all over New York.
Synopsis
Someone is killing off Wall Street's shadiest financiers, and only Silas Cade can get to the bottom of it With breakneck pacing, nonstop action, and cutting-edge details of today’s financial intelligence technology, Clawback offers a thrill-a-minute narrative set in the world of Too Big to Fail. Silas Cade, a black-ops vet and gray-zone contractor, is no stranger to gunslinging or shady finance. After coming home from America’s wars abroad, he becomes an “accountant”—the go-to for Wall Street financiers who need jobs done quickly, quietly, and by any means necessary. Hired by a major player to visit a tanking hedge fund manager and extract ten million dollars in clawback—the mandatory return of compensation paid on a deal that goes bad—Silas instead discovers that someone is killing off bankers all over New York.
About the Author
Ace Atkins is the author of nine novels, including
The Ranger, the debut novel in the Quinn Colson series, from G.P. Putnam's Sons. Earlier this year, Atkins was chosen by the Robert B. Parker estate to continue the highly popular Spenser novels. The first of those books hits bookstores in 2012 along with Atkins' sequel to
The Ranger.
A former journalist who cut his teeth as a crime reporter in the newsroom of The Tampa Tribune, he published his first novel, Crossroad Blues, at 27 and became a full-time novelist at 30. While at the Tribune, Ace earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for a feature series based on his investigation into a forgotten murder of the 1950s. The story became the core of his critically acclaimed novel, White Shadow, which earned raves from noted authors and critics. In his next novels, Wicked City, Devil's Garden, and Infamous, blended first-hand interviews and original research into police and court records with tightly woven plots and incisive characters. The historical novels told great American stories by weaving fact and fiction into a colorful, seamless tapestry.
The Ranger represents a return to Ace's first love: hero-driven series fiction. Quinn Colson is a real hero--a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan--who returns home to north Mississippi to fight corruption on his home turf. The first Quinn Colson novel, a contemporary book with a dash of classic westerns and noir, hits stores June 9th. Ace lives on a historic farm outside Oxford, Mississippi with his family.