By Ace Atkins & Marco Finnegan (12-Guage Comics/Image)
ISBN: 978-1-5343-0648-0 (TPB/Digital edition)
Following the success of long-delayed originating Nick Travers tale Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Ace Atkins & Marco Finnegan regrouped and applied their brand of Southern discomfort to the first official published exploit. Prose novel Crossroad Blues was released in 1998, with three more following every two years thereafter until 2004.
Here history and myth collide with modern tastes and business practises as Travers reviews the celebrated legend of Robert Leroy Johnson who infamously sold his soul to the Devil for musical success. He “invented” the Delta Blues, was killed in still-mysterious circumstances, is a global presence and still personifies the image of a doomed musician at the mercy of his gifts and cruel commerce. Despite his fame then and influence since, Johnson’s recording career only lasted seven months in total…
Here, a glimpse at his last moments neatly segues into college lecturer/blues documentarian Travers who is momentarily stymied in his plans to make a film about his hero Guitar Slim. Keen to break the deadlock, he checks in with Tulane’s Head of Jazz Archives Professor Randy Sexton. A guy who likes to help and one easily distracted, Nick is soon heading into the Delta for Sexton, looking for absent colleague Professor Michael Baker, who has been missing since some big-time collector hired him to locate the fabled but apparently fictional “lost recordings of Robert Johnson”…
Disbelieving but still beguiled by the notion of the Holy Grail of Blues music, Travers dogs his trail across Mississippi, encountering many dubious characters and finding new girlfriend Virginia before being sent in the direction of negro-albino “Cracker”. This enigmatic “devil-touched” old coot actually met Johnson and now lives at the Old Three Forks Store where Johnson was murdered in 1938. Sadly, he’s not there now, having been abducted and tortured by a wannabe (possibly reincarnated?) new Elvis Presley. The gun for hire has been told the aged hermit knows the location of certain legendary recordings but is all shook up at the dotard’s resistance to pain and mockery of “The King”…
After rescuing Cracker, Travers and local sheriff Willie Brown join forces, but when Nick and multi-talented Virginia search another potential location, the sheriff is murdered and Travers takes the fall until Virginia provides an alibi…
In the interim, the closeted money man behind “Elvis” breaks cover and takes over questioning Cracker. When Nick gets home to New Orleans, trouble follows him back and begins hitting his closest friends – like JoJo and Loretta…
He also has a new suspect but nobody wants to tell him who Earl Snooks is or was, and many other people even try to kill just for saying his name…
In the end, it’s Professor Randy who supplies that information and also a possible prime suspect behind all the killings and horror. Just as Travers decides to come down heavy, he gets a message that the villain will trade the recordings no one has actually seen yet for Virginia…
When the dust and blood settles, the mystery of Johnson’s death is solved, but it’s only one of many homicides and the lost records are where they’ve always been as befits the dictates of a real myth…
Complex, compelling and sublimely orchestrated, this is a yarn to delight crime cognoscenti everywhere and one you cannot miss..
© 2018 Ace Atkins. 12-Guage Comics LL authorized user. All Rights Reserved.