Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a standalone novel by the American author Ace Atkins, that was published in December 2025. I’m still not quite sure what pushed me to borrow it. Yes, the cover is striking and there’s a quote on it from Mark Greaney (an author I like) but otherwise it didn’t look as if would be quite my thing. Nonetheless I took it home with me, and I’m really glad I did.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World is a comic crime novel, set in 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia. We meet fourteen-year-old Peter Bennett, living in the city suburbs with his single mother, who works at Scientific Atlanta – a rather hush-hush laboratory that has a lot of big government contracts. Peter suspects his mother’s new boyfriend is a Russian spy. ‘Gary’ isn’t listed in any phone book, speaks with a strange accent and, in his car, has Russian-made cassette tapes and a gun hidden in the glove box. From Peter’s point of view this all adds up to nothing good.
When one of his mum’s work colleagues is murdered, Peter decides there’s a Russian link and that Gary must, therefore, be involved. His closest schoolfriends are happy to help him discover more and he also asks one of his all-time favourite crime authors, Dennis Hotchner, to help him work out what’s happened in case his mum is in danger. Unfortunately, Hotchner is way past his prime and an alcoholic to boot, but he says he’ll help and asks his best friend (a drag performer called Jackie Demure) to do so as well. It’s a wildly mis-matched and eccentric team!
Because of the sensitivity of the work being done at Scientific Atlanta the FBI is running the murder investigation and it’s not long before they realise how often they are bumping into Peter and his friends. Alongside all this there actually is a Russian hitman on the loose, a Russian defector arriving in town, while President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev are preparing for a nuclear summit in Geneva. Not all of these things are connected by the fevered imaginings of a teenaged boy … so where is it all going to lead?
My verdict
I only really know Ace Atkins’s books through his Quinn Colson series. I’ve tried to read several of those but have never managed to finish one, because I’ve found them rather formulaic. I can’t say the same about Everybody Wants to Rule the World, because it was a whole lot of fun to read.
Yes, the story is told tongue-in-cheek but all the characters are easy to picture in your mind’s eye and things move along at a great pace. You are propelled back to 1985, which is a blast in itself, with frequent references to music and culture which set the scenes perfectly. Like any teenager, Peter is everything from world-wise to childish, and the young, female FBI agent, Syliva Weaver, is a wonderful character who often repositions the narrative to bring things back down to earth.
This is a novel that took me by surprise. It’s written with a light touch and in places was laugh-out-loud funny. But more importantly, I just found it a joy to read. Effortless. Engaging. Cleverly light-hearted. I loved it. 4 Stars from me.
Review by: Cornish Eskimo
For Oundle Crime, 4 Stars = “A good book with an interesting, layered story that you will still remember after a month.”
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