This
novel has been on my radar for a while. Somewhere along the line author
Shawn Cosby and I connected on Facebook. I kept seeing people saying
positive things, The blurb from Mystic River author calling Cosby a
fresh new voice in Crime had my interest. I know Lee Child is a big deal
but I was more impressed by Walter Mosley. As these huge names kept
telling how good the book was I just couldn’t resist. So in the time
when I was waiting for the book to arrive then we heard from uncle
Steve.
There are few seals of approval in the world of
publishing like getting love from Stephen King who said of this novel “I
loved BLACKTOP WASTELAND, by S.A. Cosby. The epigram tells you all you
need to know about this fast-paced, bare-knuckle thriller: “Drive it
like you stole it.”
Then as I sat down to read this book I had the
nagging thought. How the hell is this book going to live up to the hype.
Sometimes I think it is best to push all those thoughts out of your
head when you start a book. I never read the cover flap so I went into
the novel totally cold on what it was about. I have no idea what I
expected.
I can say this is a wonderfully simple and perfect
crime noir set in the south that is driven by strong well-developed
characters. There is nothing exactly groundbreaking or earth-shattering,
but it doesn’t have to be that. It is a fun, exciting, and entertaining
noir. The strongest aspect of this novel is the confident and clear
voice that Cosby writes with.
Blacktop Wasteland is a novel
about Beauregard "Bug" Montage. He is a monster behind the wheel of a
car, and used to drive for intense robbery jobs. He has tried to go
straight, married with two kids, and is running a garage with his best
friend. Money becomes an issue when his mother is set to lose her space
in her nursing home, and his oldest daughter needs money for college. So
it is imperfect timing when a gig stealing diamonds fall into his lap.
The problem is the loser Ronnie who brings him the job is dangerous and
his wife Kia is afraid for him.
There are tons of action and
violence in this story but the book would not work at all if not for how
strong the characters were from top to bottom. Bug is a character who
you feel bad for when things get out of control. Thankfully and
refreshingly Bug feels the weight of his actions when things go bad,
very bad.
Bug is capable, and that makes the action fun to watch.
The characters are like objects seconds from impact in a crash. You
know it is falling apart but you can’t look away. The attention to
detail in the characters is a strength Cosby brings to almost every
page, that is what compels the page-turning, not the chases.
Also,
I wanted to point to the dialogue for a moment. Crime fiction almost
always hinges in serious ways on how the characters interact and talk.
The giants of crime know this, Elmore Leonard and Tarantino are obvious
examples. Cosby has good dialogue, although oddly the best example of
this was the scenes in the nursing home. That shit felt real.
This
is a fantastic noir and here is the amazing thing. It is his first
novel so as good as it was Cosby still has room to grow. I expect that
to happen in tighter dialogue and bigger scope. That said I loved every
page of this one and think crime readers would be stoked to be ahead of
the curve.
I say that because John Legend bought the film rights and
hired the Academy award-nominated screenwriter of Mudbound Virgil
Williams to adapt it. Be ahead of the curve and read this now.
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