Blacktop Wasteland

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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

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