Alabama native Ace Atkins is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist turned bestselling author of more than 30 novels who has built an illustrious career crafting hard-boiled Southern noir crime fiction. In February 2026, he is slated to receive the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer, a lifetime achievement lauding his significant contribution to Southern literature.
From his series following a New Orleans blues historian who resurrects cold cases involving long-lost musicians to a serial featuring a Mississippi Army Ranger turned small-town sheriff, Atkins has been lauded for his authentic Southern voice.
Once again Atkins draws from American history to craft his sixth standalone novel “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Harkening back to 1980s suburban Atlanta, high school freshman Peter Bennett voyages from video game arcades to BMX bike races trying to save his mom from her KGB-spy boyfriend — a man named Gary Powers who has a European accent and wears V-neck sweaters complete with “chest hair and a gold medallion spilling out.”
Homing in on 1985, dubbed by the New York Times “the year of the spy,” after dozens of American government moles working for everyone from the CIA to the U.S. Navy were arrested for espionage, Atkins’ gritty, highly entertaining Cold War spy thriller delivers an enrapturing dip into late-20th century nostalgia.
Credit: William Morrow
Credit: William Morrow
The ’80s references are rife in this novel and submerge the readers old enough to remember in unfettered reminiscence, while providing those too young to have been there a powerful anchor. From Peter’s detailed descriptions of MTV video jockeys to references to “The Dukes of Hazzard” and President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program, an array of past ideas, mores and practices proliferate on these pages.
Even the title is ripped from the ’80s. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is a 1985 Tears for Fears hit song about corruption and power that The Economist heralded in 2019 as a Cold War anthem that “speaks to the anxieties of every age.” But Atkins has a long history of titling his novels after songs that thematically relate to his stories, beginning with the author’s 1998 debut “Crossroad Blues” that delves into the 1938 murder of Delta blues artist Robert Johnson.
After Peter’s suspicions about Gary are dismissed by the police, he tracks down the disgraced, hard-drinking crime novelist Dennis “Hotch” Hotchner. Not only is Peter a fan of Hotch’s work, but the author wrote a magazine article about Russian spies who live in plain sight that fuels Peter’s theory. The suspicious 14-year-old believes Hotch holds the knowledge to free his mom from Gary’s stronghold.
While Hotch wants nothing to do with Peter, Hotch’s friend Jackie “Demure” Johnson — an ex-Falcons footballer turned flamboyant drag performer who sports a Tina Turner wig and long red fingernails — insists they help the kid. Hotch relents, and these three spirited and incongruous characters embark on a mission to rescue Peter’s mom after her Scientific Atlanta co-worker is murdered. If only she wants to be saved.
As the real-life Geneva Conventions approaches — an event that facilitated the first meeting between Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that ultimately led to the thawing of the Cold War — Atkins expertly constructs a story arc that could, plausibly, impact that meeting. The journey is fraught with unpredictable twists, mounting intrigue and no shortage of humor, all enhanced by Atkins’ over-the-top characters.
There are conflicting FBI agents and dueling KGB operatives and a whole slew of espionage and mystery to unravel as Atkins’ tale unfolds. The narrative cycles through six characters’ perspectives in rotating chapters, Peter and Hotch being two of them, as the tension ratchets and body count rises.
A large cast of protagonists can sometimes dilute the impact each figure has on a story. But Atkins’ characters are distinctive individuals, each one serving a clear and essential purpose as the narrative reaches its fulcrum.
Daniel Rafferty is a married Washington, D.C.-based FBI agent who falls prey to his obsession with a sex worker he refuses to sleep with. Vitaly Yurchenko is a KGB defector desperate to visit Atlanta — who may or may not be a triple agent — with longtime ties to Daniel. Liscia is a Soviet spy with a Phil Collins obsession who is deep undercover living as an American in the Illegals Program. And Sylvia Weaver is a tough-as-nails Georgia FBI counterintelligence officer determined to solve the Scientific Atlanta murder.
Scientific Atlanta, a historical Georgia-based Fortune 500 company that was a major U.S. manufacturer of telecommunications equipment until it was sold in 2005, isn’t the only Atlanta memory Atkins resurrects. There are dozens, such as George’s Bar and Restaurant, an Atlanta institution since 1961 where Hotch is a regular, that is still open today. Hotch works at Oxford Too, a beloved bookstore that closed in 1997. And Peter goes to a “teen nightclub” in Buckhead that seems out of place by today’s standards called Kicks, where he has a life-changing experience while seeking answers about Gary.
Ace Atkins dipped into his adolescent memories from the time he lived in Atlanta to construct his nostalgic Cold War tale.
“Peter is essentially me,” he said in a recent Crime Reads interview about his latest novel, “other than KGB assassins looking for me,” the author is quick to note.
FICTION
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
by Ace Atkins
William Morrow
368 pages, $30
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