White Shadow

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

“Ace Atkins has done a superb job of re-creating old Tampa, a place whose underworld was as dangerous and debauched as Chicago’s in its prime.”

—Carl Hiaasen

“It’s atmospheric stuff, spit out in staccato bursts like a rewrite man pounding a Remington on deadline.”

—
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Ace Atkins makes 1950s Florida as cool and hip as tomorrow in this outstanding novel. It’s a stunning achievement and sure to be a book of the year.”

—Lee Child

“A delicious slice of noir . . . The dark, twisted plot of
White Shadow
and its complex, often surprising characters make it a fine example of hard-boiled crime fiction, but for anyone who remembers Tampa before the days of chain everything and metastasizing development, it’s a fabulous piece of time travel . . .
White Shadow
will give you an extra serving of thrills.”

—
St. Petersburg Times

“It’s not hard to tell when an author has an affinity for the place, time, and people he’s chronicling, and such is the case with Atkins’s fictionalized take on real events that occurred in Tampa, fifty years ago . . . How these characters and stories converge to make a history of their own is the heart of a book that is obviously a labor of love . . . If you don’t end this book wrapped up in their lives like tobacco in an old-time Tampa cigar, you have missed the glory in the tale.”

—
Rocky Mountain News

“White Shadow
is a big, poetic, and muscular novel, as sleek and tough as the stylish characters that inhabit its pages. Ace Atkins writes like a crime beat reporter jacked on passion and ambition. A bravura performance.”

—George Pelecanos

“In what is sure to be one of the most talked-about crime novels of the year, Atkins returns to his old haunts in Tampa, FL, to reopen a case buried for nearly fifty years.
White Shadow
is a stunning look at the 1955 murder and investigation of retired gangster Charlie Wall. The prose and feel of the novel suggests that Atkins stepped into a time machine to capture the atmosphere and nostalgia of Tampa and Havana, Cuba, in their heyday . . . The cast is engrossing. The feel of old Tampa is as real as it gets . . . Captivating and breathtaking.”

—
The Clarion-Ledger

“The book’s alive. Open the cover to release the Florida subtropics, 1955: a ceiling fan, brew of Cuban coffee, blood on brick, the scent of a woman’s stockings, fried eggs at a midnight diner as young Fidel rants. Ace Atkins nails it: his hard-boiled detective Ed Dodge rivals Marlowe; his Tampa rivals Chinatown.”

—Randy Wayne White

“A terrific story with a breakneck plot and a rogues’ gallery of lusty characters ranging from Mafia gangsters to Cuban revolutionaries to crooked cops to endearing circus freaks to a firebrand of a girl who just about steals the show. This marvelous weave of fact and fiction brings Tampa, Havana, and the 1950s to robust, hot-blooded life . . . Atkins’s best book yet.”

—James Carlos Blake

“A rich, powerful novel that is to south Florida what Ellroy’s
L.A. Confidential
is to Los Angeles. Combining fiction with meticulous historical fact, Ace Atkins has given us a layered, complex work that re-creates a Florida when Meyer Lansky fought to control Cuba even as a young Fidel Castro preached revolution along the Tampa coast. The tough cops and obsessed reporters who risk everything to uncover the truth behind a murder, even as they battle their own demons, pulse with authentic life, as do the pages of this book. You will taste the salty ham in Cuban sandwiches, smell the cigar smoke in Florida’s humid air, and thank Mr. Atkins for writing this tour de force.”

—Robert Crais

“Ace Atkins has always been one of crime fiction’s most interesting and passionate voices, and
White Shadow
is his most ambitious work yet, a sweeping page-turner anchored in a beautifully wrought time and place.”

—Laura Lippman

“Think
L.A. Confidential,
but even more emotionally complex. Atkins gives us an era evoked with stunning detail and panoramic richness; a Florida no one has seen before, created with a rare dimensionality and juiciness.
White Shadow
has real historical characters, a real crime, a real world brought to life, an exotic corner of America lit up before our eyes. I’ve enjoyed Ace Atkins’s work before, but this is a whole new ballgame—the big leagues.”

—James W. Hall

“White Shadow,
based on the unsolved, real-life throat-slashing of a retired bootlegger named Charlie Wall, succeeds both as a first-rate historical novel and as a superb crime story. The book packs the emotional wallop of Dennis Lehane’s
Mystic River.
It is as gritty as James Ellroy’s
L.A. Confidential.
And yet, the prose is as lyrical as James Lee Burke’s
Crusader’s Cross
. . . With
White Shadow
, Atkins has found his true voice.”

—The Associated Press

“Reminiscent of James Ellroy’s
L.A. Confidential,
Atkins’s fictionalized account of the unsolved murder of real-life Tampa crime boss Charlie Wall in 1955 admirably re-creates a time and a place . . . Atkins, who unearthed the story in connection with a reporting assignment for the
Tampa Tribune
, puts his extensive research to good dramatic use.”

 

“Well told.”

“The author paints a visceral portrait . . . Atkins is a proud torch-bearer of a literary tradition that includes William Faulkner . . . There’s nothing derivative about this novel, only the emergence of a great new voice in American fiction.”

“[Atkins’s] unflinching, graphic storytelling echoes the best of James Ellroy and James Crumley . . . A solid piece of crime fiction, not a history lesson.”

“Atkins has been making a name for himself with highly descriptive, noirish tales set in the Deep South and based on real events. With his latest taking place in the real Phenix City, he has conjured up a time and setting that literally smells of swamps and sweat, tobacco, and gunpowder.”

“A gritty, well-plotted story that makes for fascinating fictionalized true crime.”

“You don’t just read
Wicked City
. . . You absorb each highball of bourbon, each plume of smoke, each peek at a pastie-covered nipple until you’re woozy off words that dance and dart and catch you cold, like a sucker punch to the chin . . . It would be hackneyed if it weren’t true, but to his credit, the historical accuracy isn’t what elevates Atkins’s prose to greatness. It’s his ability to let these characters breathe in a way that few authors could ever imagine. He doesn’t so much write them as unleash them upon the page.”

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2006 by Ace Atkins.

Interior photos:
Charlie Wall, the Wall crime scene
,
Santo Trafficante, Jr
., and
Fidel Castro
courtesy of the
Tampa Tribune.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-15173-0

 

White shadow / Ace Atkins.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-15173-0

1. Wall, Charlie, d. 1955—Death—Fiction. 2. Mafia—Fiction. 3. Reporters and reporting—Fiction. 4. Tampa (Fla.)—Fiction. 5. Havana (Cuba)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3551.T49W

813’.6—dc22

 

 

 

And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us.

—ROBERT PENN WARREN,
All the King’s Men

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

—WILLIAM FAULKNER,
Requiem for a Nun