Blacktop Wasteland

Author S. A. Cosby
Narrator Adam Lazarre-White
Publisher Headline
Run Time 11 hours and 8 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Crime and mystery fiction, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction, Thriller / suspense fiction.

Listen to a sample

What to expect

IT'S A CRIME THAT HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

'Sensationally good - new, fresh, real, authentic, twisty, with characters and dilemmas that will break your heart. ' LEE CHILD

'Every once in a while a writer comes along with an incredible voice. Think Elmore Leonard, or Chester Himes...add S. A. Cosby to that list." STEVE CAVANAGH

Beauregard "Bug" Montage: honest mechanic, loving husband, devoted parent. He's no longer the criminal he once was - the sharpest wheelman on the east coast, infamous from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida.

But when his respectable life begins to crumble, a shady associate comes calling with a clean, one-time job: a diamond heist promising a get-rich payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver's seat - and haunted by the ghost of his outlaw father - Bug is yanked back into a savage world of bullets and betrayal, which soon endangers all he holds dear...

Like Breaking Bad in a high-speed collision with Drive, this stunning debut holds up a cracked mirror to the woozy ideals of the American dream - a dazzling, operatic story of a man pushed to his limits by poverty, race and a scarred, self-destructive masculinity.

'Blacktop Wasteland is an urgent, timely, pitch-perfect jolt of American noir.' DENNIS LEHANE

'...S. A. Cosby reinvents the American crime novel. Blacktop Wasteland thrums and races - it's an intoxicating thrill of a ride'. WALTER MOSLEY

The perfect page-turning read for fans of acclaimed writers such as Don Winslow, Attica Locke, Bill Beverley and Thomas Mullen.

(P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critics Review

Sensationally good-new, fresh, real, authentic, twisty, with characters and dilemmas that will break your heart. More than recommended.

Lee Child

Every once in a while a writer comes along with an incredible voice. Think Elmore Leonard, or Chester Himes. With Blacktop Wasteland, add S. A. Cosby to that list. Trust me, this guy is gonna be a big name someday.

Steve Cavanagh

A delicious slice of country gothic wrapped in smart, hard, contemporary neo noir

Adrian McKinty

Blacktop Wasteland is an urgent, timely, pitch-perfect jolt of American noir. S. A. Cosby is a welcome, refreshing new voice in crime literature.

Dennis Lehane

Diamonds and fast cars, trailer park dreams and late night illegal street racing, S. A. Cosby reinvents the American crime novel…Blacktop Wasteland thrums and races – it’s an intoxicating thrill of a ride.

Walter Mosley

Every now and then, a novelist shows up with a confidence and a swagger that makes it silly to compare him to anyone else. S. A. Cosby, the man behind the wheel of Blacktop Wasteland, writes the way his main character drives – with precision and fearlessness, in complete command of the road ahead. The book will leave you breathless, but also desperate to know where Cosby will take us next

Laura Lippman

Fast-paced, thrilling noir with beautifully drawn characters that really live and breathe. A fantastic novel.

Mason Cross

A roaring, full-throttle thriller

NEW YORK TIMES

It’s fitting Blacktop Wasteland opens with a drag race. This is the literary equivalent of a muscle car-sleek, a little dangerous, and when it kicks into gear, you hold on for dear life. Lucky for you, Cosby is an expert wheelman.

Rob Hart

Powerful, gritty, and lyrical, S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is the unflinching portrayal of a man who’s deeply aware he needs to make a better life for himself and his family, but can’t ? or won’t. Cosby is a mesmerizing new voice in crime fiction you won’t soon forget. This is literary noir at its finest.

Jennifer Hillier

Blacktop Wasteland will let the world at large in on what the crime fiction underworld already knows: S. A. Cosby is a major, original talent. Searing, twisted and jaggedly human, this Southern noir heist novel leaves scars.

Jordan Harper

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