Ace Atkins — crime writer — takes on true crime in Infamous (Putnam), a novel about George “Machine Gun” Kelly, his conniving wife Kathryn, gangsters, G-men, and a front-page story from 1933: the Kellys’ kidnapping of an Oklahoma oilman and the couple’s cross-country efforts to escape the law.
The story, in Atkins’ words, is a comedy of errors. But it’s also a novel steeped in period detail and characterization. And it ends where Kelly and Kathryn ended up: Kelly’s hometown, Memphis. That’s where Kelly and Kathryn were captured. And it’s where this story began: with Atkins inside the Shelby County Archives.
Before Atkins’ booksigning in Memphis at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on April 26th, I had a chance to talk to the author, who lives outside Oxford, Mississippi. It was a chance for him to talk about Infamous, before Atkins himself hits the road on a book tour, a topic we get to right off.