Blacktop Wasteland is a terrific bit of OwnVoices crime fiction from African-American author S.A. Cosby, featuring African-American lead Beauregard Montage, one of the best -- if not the best -- wheelman in Virginia. To say this book is a ride is a helluva an understatement.

Montage has been trying to go straight and do right by his family, but living in poverty doesn't make life easy. The mortgage on his auto body repair shop is past due, Medicaid stopped paying the nursing home caring for his ill mother, his daughter's future is college is in jeopardy, and medical bills for his sons are piling up. When it rains, it pours, and Beauregard is absolutely drenched. He's feeling the pinch hard when Ronnie Sessions, a con decked out in a litany of Elvis tattoos and fresh out of prison, comes with the promise of a lucrative heist and in need of a pro get-away driver. The money's too good to ignore, and Beauregard promises both himself and his wife that after this one last job, he's done for good.

Blacktop Wasteland is built off a number of tropes and cliches seasoned crime readers know by heart, but Cosby gets some really good mileage out of these well-worn treads, and even puts a fresh coat of paint on a few thanks to his focus on generational legacies and rural poverty, writing with a voice of authenticity. It's a book that's got character where it counts, and it's the characters peopling this book that really make Blacktop Wasteland shine.

Beauregard is the kind of guy I'd like to have some beers with and listen to his stories, if he'd be willing to share them. Cosby builds a wonderfully tragic character with this dude, and we come to know him intimately by book's end. There's a constant pull of tension throughout, as we want to see him succeed and gets him what's owed, but we also want him to breakaway from this life of crime and not have to repeat his father's mistakes. Generations of poverty, racism, and crime have worked to severely limit his options, and making an honest living with his hands has only left him boxed in, with his back tight against a corner. Cosby does a great job illustrating how a man can be lured back into a life of crime, particularly after life keeps landing one blow after another. Beauregard is an utterly sympathetic figure, and smart as hell, to boot.

In Blacktop Wasteland's opening chapter, we become immediately familiar with Beauregard and the type of man he is when he takes revenge on a con artist who robbed him of his drag street race winnings. It's a terrific opening, and shines a light on his quick wits and sharp as a tack mind. Beauregard's intelligence is on full display in the heists that follow, as he plans his routes and makes his daring escapes. Cosby writes some marvelous chase scenes, which, while exciting to be sure, put Beauregard's brains front and center, and help illustrate why he's the best wheelman in the biz.

Blacktop Wasteland is an absorbing, and frequently adrenaline-fueled, read. Cosby has a natural and fluid writing style, occasionally accented with welcoming moments of humor, like when Beauregard is greeted by the summer heat at 10AM, "the sun beating down on him like he owed it money," or in highlighting Ronnie's supposed charms, who "would sweet talk her until she had Type 2 diabetes...." Gritty, authentic, and featuring a fantastic protagonist, Blacktop Wasteland is a must-read crime novel, and instantly cements Cosby as an author I'll be following from here on out.

For awhile now now I've been looking for a good heist book and I finally found it. S.A. Cosby does a great job of making you feel as if you're in the car chases and action. One of my favorite books I've read this year.

WHEW. This book will grab you and not let go. It's intense, gritty, dark, and from the start you get the sense that anything could happen.

The story follows a getaway driver, mechanic, father, husband, and take-no-shit badass wrestling with the legacy of his criminal dad who left when he was a kid. When bills come due and his whole life is about to fall apart over money he doesn't have, Bug gets back into the getaway driving game - and gets wrapped up with some truly bad people.

I feel like this is a book I'm going to be thinking about for a long time to come. It grabbed me and didn't let go.

Samuel L. Jackson’s final scene in Pulp Fiction features his character, Jules, confronting a lowlife thief; a junkie who is as crazy as he is nervous. Jules is a hardened contract killer who could easily take out the dude and get back to chowing down on his eggs before his coffee got cold. His wallet? Leather proof of such bad-assery. Instead, Jules is attempting to turn his life around. He is struggling to getting out The Life and get on with life. He is through with the tyranny of evil and wishes to shepherd the weak. He’s trying real hard yet knows this fight is a futile one.

Author S.A. Cosby introduces Beauregard "Bug" Montage. A husband. A father. A mechanic. And the best wheel man in the South. As with Jules, Beauregard seeks to exit The Life. He’s an adult. He has responsibilities. But man, The Life is a mainlined drug for which there is no cure and with zero chance of turning away.

Blacktop Wasteland is crime fiction noir that guns away at The Life like a muscle car with an open throttle on an endless highway.

Blacktop Wasteland is about dealing with those carefree ramifications. How Beauregard, a fatherless black man, looks to break the criminal cycle in order to better care for his children. About the difficulties in making that choice. About how tempting, how foolishly easy, being in The Life looks. And Cosby creates one helluva a deep character.

Beauregard is a man who loves his life, but the weight of constant bills and an aggravating mother dying in a nursing home does not present an adrenaline kick that driving at 110 with flashing red-and-blues on your tail offers. As the responsibilities of life pile up, Beauregard turns back to The Life for that One Final Job. The Job that will help him provide for his family. The Job that ultimately, because of course it does, will have disastrous ramifications.

Hired as a getaway driver for an in-and-out diamond store heist, Beauregard ends up taking the wheels behind the entire op unaware of the betrayal planned for him – the cost of working with a cowardly and superstitious lot – and the risks to his family. Beauregard must deal with the beast within when all he wants to do is drive. Cosby masterfully expresses the joy Beauregard feels when in the driver’s seat. That joy is what makes any life worthwhile. For a heist-oriented crime novel it is the chase that is fun.

There should have been more of that joy.

Blacktop Wasteland has Beauregard Montage behind the wheel racing from cops, the hillbilly mafia, and, unfortunately, his family. Cosby is aces in setting up the man within only to tear him down. In building character blocks ready for the wrecking ball. Cosby has Beauregard constantly struggling with a pre-determined destiny.

But Bug? He is trying hard to be the shepherd.


Aces to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for making Blacktop Wasteland available. Definitely looking forward to reading more from Cosby.

Beauregard “Bug” Montage is a family man and an honest car mechanic. He had a troubled start with time in juvie after taking up for his dad, the best getaway driver on the East Coast, who then promptly disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since.

Now Bug is settled with his wife and two kids and his own garage. He helps out as much as he can with his teenage daughter from a previous relationship and pays for his mother’s care in the best assisted living home he can afford.

He shoulders a lot of responsibility and manages to stay on the straight and narrow …until a series of events lead him back down a dark path: A new garage in town is taking all his business, an error with his mother’s Medicaid leaves him with a huge debt, his son needed a new pair of glasses, and his daughter is going to get stuck in their small town if she doesn’t find the money she needs for her first semester of college.

Bug has held on to his dad’s Duster for all these years; the car is full of memories and serves as a tombstone. It’s also a way to make some extra money. With Bug’s creditors breathing down his neck he considers one last heist with shady small time criminal Ronnie Sessions.
Bug is the brains behind the diamond heist as well as the getaway driver, but Ronnie’s greed will send their clean getaway off the rails when some dangerous characters arrive to threaten everything Bug holds dear.

Blacktop Wasteland is an epic crime novel that readers who love thrillers, grit lit, and Southern noir will appreciate. I was hooked from page one: the action is cinematic, the stakes are high, and the characters are fully realized with outstanding development.
I loved the relationship between Bug and his wife Kia. You can feel the familiarity and comfort in their marriage and the solid trust --- and you're forced to watch that crumble.
His mother is a secondary character but steals the show in every appearance with lines like, "Oh, I'm sorry, chile. You're short-staffed. I'll try to die more quietly."

Bug’s internal struggle over being the man he wants to be versus the man he believes himself to be and seeing that line blur as his plans fall apart was compelling and so heartbreaking.
I honestly had no idea how this book was going to end: was it possible for Bug to return to the life he’d created for himself and his family or would he give in to what he thought was an inescapable destiny?

Huge thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Blacktop Wasteland is scheduled for release on July 14, 2020.

“Blacktop Wasteland” is a new thriller from author, S.A. Cosby. The story tells the tale of Beauregard, a mechanic who is known as the best getaway driver on the opposite side of the law. He’s given up the life of crime and just wants to lay low, make enough money to pay bills and take care of his family. However, “Bug” gets drawn back into the dangerous life of crime. The question remains… will he make it out alive?

This thriller starts from page one and the author’s foot never comes off the gas pedal. The book has a southern grit infused in it which I enjoyed. The book contains a large amount of profanity and some adult content that I did not particularly care for. The book touches on some pretty sensitive topics like poverty, race and ability to change. So although the book is a thriller, it is likely to stir up some intense emotions and leave readers pondering some pretty heavy concepts.
Please note: I received this novel from NetGalley and the publisher for free in exchange for a honest review.

Southern noir isn't my usual genre to read, but this author and I share an agent, and I heard Shawn Cosby read at a conference, so I've been eagerly anticipating this book. It's dark and raw and sketches a world I've never known--a place where people race rebuilt cars down lost bits of road, and seem to ingest more Oxy and heroin and alcohol than food, and hatch heist plans that fail and double back to fail again and get people killed. And I read this book in 24 hours. I found myself in awe of Cosby's ability to create suspense, to develop a flawed but sympathetic protagonist that I longed to protect from himself ("NO! Don't do that! Go home!"), and to put his protagonist in trouble and still more trouble. My one issue is I found the writing a bit uneven (and this might be an artifact of it being an ARC). The book is told in third-person but focalized almost exclusively through Beauregard; the movie camera stays perched on Beauregard's shoulder, so to speak, and the narrator hews close to his consciousness. Most of the time the narration blends with Beauregard's spoken language; but occasionally I felt pulled up short when the narrator (expressing Beauregard's thoughts) uses vocabulary or makes references to literature that seem outside of Beauregard's experience. For example, at one point the narrator describes the character Ronnie as having a "lean and hungry look," but nothing Beauregard had done so far suggested to me he's read or would recall at a moment of tension a line plucked from the Shakespeare play "Julius Caesar." That said, I love a lot of the language in here--Cosby is the master of the pithy single sentence edged with dark humor--and I found myself highlighting. Lines are never as good when they're pulled out of context, but here are a few that sang to me: "He could feel the sun beating down on him like he owed it money." "He wasn't robbing Peter to pay Paul. They had both ganged up on him and were mugging him." "My daddy was the kind of man who left a big hole behind. It was easy for her to fill that hole with hurt." "Listen, when you're a black man in America you live with the weight of people's low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you." For world building and creating characters that pull painfully at your heart, this book is amazing.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advance copy of Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby. At it's heart this was a book about a man struggling against his nature and where that leads him during a financially difficult period of his adult life. Beauregard Montage, aka Bug, has spent his adult life alternately running away from and then returning to a life of crime. Bug has a family to provide for and a garage to keep in business and when his back is against the wall he has to choose whether or not to stay on the straight and narrow path or fall back into old habits. His choice has implications for everyone he knows and loves.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read, particularly for fans of heist stories and crime fiction. I enjoyed the writing style, which made it easy to picture the people and places that populated Blacktop Wasteland. I will definitely be keeping my eye out for the next book by S.A. Cosby!

Blacktop Wasteland is a beautifully written story about the struggle of a black man trying to be a good family man, while navigating through the world of crime as a brilliantly talented wheelman to make ends meet. The story realistically handles racism in today’s world, with meaningful encounters throughout the book showing how Beauregard, AKA Bug, the protagonist, tries to teach his children the importance of being better than him and acquiring education to give them the choices he never had growing up. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. One of Beauregard’s sayings to his child is ‘when you’re a black man in America, you live with the weight of people’s low expectations on your back every goddamn day’. This is just one of the hard-hitting realities Mr. Cosby, the writer, conveys to readers in a manner that will stick with you long after you finish reading the book.
The story flows naturally and in a fast-paced manner. Bug struggles to keep his mechanic shop afloat, with a competition taking away Bug’s customers. The desperation to provide for his family causes Bug to take part in one final heist as a wheelman. Bug is a natural behind the wheel. Sharp and meticulous. The car becomes a part of Bug when he’s driving it. It becomes a symbiotic bond, which makes for exciting and praise-worthy car chases. The driving portions are written so skillfully, I was in awe of their excellence. I felt the sequences to be cinematic, comparable to the excellent sequences of the movie Drive.
As a reader, you resonate with Beauregard’s conflicts as if you’re reading a memoir. Beauregard struggles with his dark past, and he struggles with the darkness inside him that makes him feel more alive behind the wheel driving away from the cops than being with his family. The book begs the question, if we can be more than our dark past, or are we configured to repeat the cycle of our ancestors. Every single character feels like a real-life personality. Every presence in the book holds weight. Which is why, the tragedies in the book hit me harder than I could have braced myself for.
This book could not come out at a better time. Reading through this gave me an insight into the harsh world of living as a black man in America, and with all the injustices going on with racial inequality, this book resonated with me in ways I could not have expected. I would strongly urge readers to get this book as soon as it comes out on 14th July. You will not be disappointed. I can absolutely say this is one of the best reading experiences I have had. It is a book for everyone. Huge thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Five big stars!
Absolutely nothing is going right in Beauregard “Bug” Montage’s life. The loan on his business is past due, his kid needs braces and he’s just been hit with a bill for his mother’s nursing home care. So, he goes back to what he did in a prior life- criminal planner and getaway driver.
This book is sad and gritty, all at the same time. Cosby has created some great characters here, starting with Bug. He’s a decent man who's been handed a raw deal. You just want things to work out for him. His mother is a total piece of work and it’s a testament to his decency that he doesn’t just walk away from her. And my God, Bug’s co-criminals are not going to win any awards for smarts or ethics. You just know that things aren’t going to go well.
The writing is fabulous. Take this phrase “he...had a hairline that was retreating like Lee at Gettysburg.” I was highlighting phrases, just so I could go back and review how crazy good the writing was.
This will appeal to those that like Lou Berney’s or Attica Locke’s writing. Very atmospheric, taking the time to set the stage before moving into a higher gear. Once things get rolling, the dominoes fall in rapid succession. I just did not see so much of this book coming. It was not only action packed, it was heartbreaking. I could see this book being easily transformed into a movie.
My thanks to netgalley and Flatiron Books for an advance copy of this book.

Beauregard “Bug” Montage has gone clean. He used to be the man to get if you needed a driver in a hurry. Not necessarily a legal hurry. He is living the life at the beginning of this story with his wife and two boys. But then a competitor opens up a cheaper garage and money problems start and Bug starts worrying about how the bills are going to get paid.
Enter in a diamond heist that two dumb butts have the perfect crime planned out for. They just need a driver.
"I asked around about you, boy. They say you could outrun the devil on the highway to Hell."

And Bug can.
But as far as perfect crimes go this one is like most of them. They go bad.


Bug ends up in way deeper than he ever imagined. The two idiots that set up the heist had no clue who they were messing with.
You caught between a wannabe Pablo Escobar chopping motherfuckers up and putting them in grease buckets and a redneck Walter White. When you fuck up you do it right.

I flipping loved every single second of this book. Bug was the character that I could see his point of view so well that I actually thought several times that I was in that car with him. This author can write his ass off.
My daddy was right. You can't be two types of beasts. Eventually one of the beasts gets loose and wrecks shop. Rips shit all to Hell.

I'm gonna go licks the wounds that this book gave me and bask in the book hangover that only a select few books can give.


Booksource: I received a copy of this book from the publisher thru Netgalley in exchange for review. I loved it all on my own.

I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.

You know how some cars have a handhold mounted above the doors on the interior, and you hear people call them the “Oh-Shit-Handle” because if you’re a passenger and something crazy happens you might find yourself clutching it while screaming expletives?

This book should come with an Oh-Shit-Handle because it’s that kind of ride.

Beauregard “Bug” Montage was a professional criminal whose planning skills were second only to his driving abilities. However, he left that life behind to be a husband and father, and he started his own automotive repair shop in rural Virginia. Unfortunately, business has gotten slow, and the bills are piling up. That’s when an old associate who burned Bug on a previous heist shows up with the promise of an easy score. Feeling that he has no other options, Bug decides to do the job even though he has grave concerns about who he’ll be working with.

What could possibly go wrong?

I wrote about how S.A. Cosby came to my attention at the 2019 Bouchercon in my review of his first book, My Darkest Prayer, and with his second book he continues to deliver.

The idea of a former criminal trying to go straight who takes one last job has certainly been done before in crime fiction. Cosby hits all the familiar beats with the planning, the heist, the twist, all the other elements you’d see in a Richard Stark novel, and he does them well. As just a crime novel this makes for a helluva page turner.

Where the book hits the next gear (Get it?) is in the character work done with Bug, and it’s all about the relationships. First, there’s the daddy issues with Bug being haunted by his unresolved feelings for his father, a criminal who vanished at a critical moment in Bug’s youth. Then there’s the hateful dying mother he feels obligated to support. Finally, there’s the wife and kids he dearly loves and is trying to make a brighter future for.

Like many a character in a crime fiction like this, Bug claims he’s doing it all for his loved ones, but there’s a part of him that also loves the outlaw life. It also fits his violent tendencies better than being a family man, and one of the key things that Cosby digs into here is the notion of a person split between two conflicting lifestyles that are fundamentally opposed. In the end the book is really about Bug coming to terms with who he really is, who he wants to be, and what kind of damage he’s already done to the people he loves.

In addition to all this, the writing just absolutely cooks. There’s great action, gritty violence, humor, heartbreaking moments, and while reading there were some driving sequences where I found myself pressing my foot on the floor as if I could stomp the brake to slow the car down. I grew up in a rural area, and I may have broken a few speed limits on country roads in my youth so Cosby’s descriptions of what that rush is like really hit home for me,

It’s a fantastic follow up to his first novel, and it makes me more sure than ever that Cosby is a writer to watch.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby is a crime thriller involving Beauregard "Bug" Montage. Bug is the owner of a small auto repair shop, trying to make ends meet and live what many consider a normal life when financial problems keep landing at his doorstep. In what seemed to be a past life, Bug was known to be one of the best getaway drivers in the East but has since turned from that lifestyle to raise his two boys with his wife, Kia, while operating his business.

Mostly beyond Bug's control, financial difficulties continue to mount, causing Bug to reconsider his choice of the retirement of his getaway driving skills. Soon, because of limited financial paths, Bug is enticed into entering into what has been described to him as a "sure-thing" heist with two white trash, pecker-wood brothers. Not long after, because of his enticement and how things rarely go as planned, Bug is soon involved with two groups of even more dangerous criminals, with few places to turn.

Blacktop Wasteland contains a wide range of well developed supporting characters and a tinge of generational history to Beauregard "Bug" Montage to add interest to his story. As the novel unfolds, Cosby creates a likable Bug as a man trying to do the right things and where readers hope for a positive outcome, while at the same time, the reader feels an impending doom is more likely.

This is the first novel I have read by S.A. Cosby and it was such a pleasant surprise. The story moves along at a fast pace and like clockwork without seeming to be a cookie-cutter like assembled crime novel. While reading the novel, it was easy to picture what was being read in a cinema-like fashion. On top of that, due to the cover illustration, through the novel I kept picturing the actor Sterling K. Brown as Beauregard "Bug" Montage (hopefully it won't be long before a movie studio picks up the rights to this novel).

It is also easy to predict, Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby will be on many top ten lists as the end of the year approaches.

Blacktop Wasteland is highly recommended to fans of crime thrillers, Grit Lit/Southern Noir, and novels from authors such as George Pelecanos and Dennis LeHane.

An ARC was provided by Flatiron Press/Netgalley for the promise of the return of an honest review.

For a while there, things were great.

Beauregard “Bug” Montage had a happy family and his own business. His days as a wheelman were long over, and he's walks a straight and narrow line now. But . . . money's tight, and times are tough, and all of a sudden, the walls are closing in. Bug needs money --- FAST. So, the timing couldn't be better (or maybe worse) when an old acquaintance shows up with a proposition.

Will Bug risk it all for one last turn behind the wheel?

This was a thrill-a-minute ride with a strong Elmore Leonard vibe. I can't imagine crime fiction fans NOT liking this book.

Seat belts are highly recommended.

Cosby's "Blacktop Wasteland" is a lesson in what makes a great crime fiction novel. And, when I say great, you better believe it. It harkens back to all the top caper novels. It's all about a guy named Beauregard Montage, better known as "Bug." And, Bug is just trying to go straight, to life a good life, be a good husband, a good father. But, as Springsteen once said, he's got debts no honest man can pay. He's going to lose the garage business he's built up over the years since he got out.

And, maybe, if he pulled one last job, he'd be able to provide for his family. See, Bug is a driver. He's a driver like Steve McQueen is a driver and no one is at one with a set of wheels like Bug. But, see the thing is when you're desperate you don't have the luxury of picking your jobs and you can't pick your partners. The job ain't planned out to the second like Bug wants and his partners are trying out for a walk on part in Goodfellas. Like any good noir novel, you can already sense the whirlpool starting and you know it's all going to go sideways. Bug is like a drowning man without a damn life preserver.

Bug is a terrific complex character who can't get off the road he's on. The writing in this novel is absolutely fantastic. Every page counts. Every word counts.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.