Blacktop Wasteland: A Novel

The chase scenes in this book were better than any movie. My heart was beating fast and I was completely involved. This novel is not the kind I usually read, but I’m so glad I read it. Bug wants to be a good family man, but he thinks he inherited some kind of bad boy gene from his father, who was occasionally a good family man, but mostly a criminal. The story flips back and forth between the loving husband and father, and the amazing wheelman. Highly entertaining book.

The character development was, in my opinion, perfect! The book has a Deep South feel and is focused on Beauregard “Bug” Montage. Bug is trying to be an honest man making an honest living for his family. He left behind a past filled with fast driving and the kind of crime that requires a getaway driver. Even though he is no longer that beast, he knows it runs through his blood. He labels it a Montage thing.As finically hardships start to multiply a former partner shows up with a new opportunity Bug can’t seem to pass it up. Unfortunately for Bug it seems that if anything can go wrong with this job it does go wrong. Bad luck and deception runs rampant.🗣 𝗤𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲“You can’t be two types of beasts. Eventually one of the beasts gets loose and wrecks shop. Rips shit all to Hell.”🧐 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀I listened to the audiobook version and was blown away by the narrator as well as the story itself. It flowed flawlessly and kept my attention throughout. It had me anxious and even heartbroken at times. This read like a fast paced, action packed movie with a well thought out heist, getaway driving, street racing, twists and turns, and crazy southern characters.I loved Bug as a character and how this was so well written with the right amount of details and great dialogue. I am already anticipating my next S.A. Cosby read. My favorite part about the audiobook was the author interview at the end. We get to hear Cosby’s thought process and inspiration for his characters and stories. I am a new fan!

I'm a newbie to the writings of S.A. Cosby and I'm so impressed with his writing style. If you're a fan offinely crafted mysteries, I recommend all of his novels.

Blacktop Wasteland is a heist novel that centers on the wheel man, the getaway driver, like a more realistic version of Edgar Wright's Baby Driver but just as exciting. I don't know anything about S.A. Cosby, but I assume he must be a car enthusiast because his descriptions of engine mechanics and driving seem to come from a place of personal knowledge rather than just research.Cosby builds the novel on the classic noir setup. Beauregard "Bug" Montage, got off to a bad start in life doing petty crimes as a teenager until a job gone wrong ended him up in juvenile detention. By the time Bug got out, his father, Anthony (aka "Ant), had disappeared, never to be seen again. The only thing Ant left Bug was the souped-up Plymouth Duster they both loved. Bug turned it into a legendary street-racing machine and had the chops to drive it like no one else could.After the stint in juvie, Bug went straight. He bought an old garage and turned it into an auto repair shop. He remarried. (The first marriage had long since dissolved; they were both teens at the time.) And he had a successful business until a rival shop run by a franchise called Precision moved into town and undercut his prices.Because he couldn't beat Precision's prices, he lost customers and fell behind on his mortgage payments. Meanwhile, his son Darren needs glasses. His other son Javon had to get braces. His daughter Ariel, from the first marriage, is smart enough she could go to college and make something of herself if only she could afford the tuition. To top it all off, his mother is in a convalescent home, and he's just learned that there's a discrepancy with her Medicaid policy for which he now owes the government $48,360.Bug is in desperate straights financially when Ronnie Sessions shows back up in his life. Ronnie is a redneck drug addict and career criminal who's always looking for the next score. He's also the screw-up who masterminded the job-gone-wrong that put Bug in juvenile detention way back when. But this time he's got a foolproof scheme. Ronnie's girlfriend Jenny is working at a jewelry store that is going to be temporarily holding $500,000-worth of uncut diamonds, and with her help they are going to take advantage of that window of opportunity to steal the diamonds. Reggie knows a guy who can fence the goods, giving them a clean $250,000 which Ronnie, Bug, and the gunman on the team, Quan, can split three ways. Eighty thousand dollars would go a long way toward solving Bug's problems.But he quit the life. He has a wife and two sons he loves, a daughter he rarely sees but cares about, a difficult mother to take care of, an employee (and childhood friend) named Kelvin... he can't blow it all by getting caught or killed in a holdup. Bug's wife Kia tries to convince him, instead, to sell the beloved Duster, which is legendary in the county and would bring a very high price. Bug can't let go of that link to his father, though. So he tells himself that if he fully takes charge of the job, checks out everything personally, makes sure absolutely nothing can go wrong, then it's just one last job, and he'll be out of the life for good.You know this story, right? The "one last job and then I'm out" story? It's a good one. A classic, in fact.Ronnie and Quan both promised Bug they would stay away from coke for the duration of the job, but they lied. Ronnie also lied about the value of the diamonds, which was really more like $3,000,000. (If you were smarter than Ronnie, it would make you wonder why jewels that valuable would be passing through a rinky-dink, small-town jewelry store and who would be behind it.) In fairness to Ronnie, though, there's no way he could have known the fat lady who was Jenny's boss at the store was also a stone-cold killer. I won't tell you anything about what happens next except for the one thing you already know -- once the robbery starts, everything goes to hell big time, real fast.S.A. Cosby is a terrific writer. With this novel, he's already in the realm of the likes of Elmore Leonard, Dennis Lehane, and George Pelecanos. The story is peopled with a fully realized cast of characters, the small-town Georgia settings feel lived in, the action sequences and tense encounters are white-knuckle stuff. If you like hard-boiled noir fiction, this one's for you.

Can you feel the pressure? A kid who needs braces, another off to college, an elderly mother in care, and what’s that? Rent’s due? Of course it is! Just a day in the life of Bug Montage. Get ready for a story packed full of real life problems with real life solutions, for better or worse.A riveting piece of noir fiction, the atmospheric power wielded by Cosby is unmatched. This novel sucks you in and doesn’t let go well beyond the last page. You can feel the heat in your palms from Red Hill as you read, and smell the oil on the hands of every character as you turn the page.Bug Montage dares to ask where your parents end and you begin as he navigates the flat roads of Virginia in a bid to save the decent life he’s created for his family. His life is anything but serene, regardless of how hard he tries, and the anxiety he feels for those he cares for is evident in every line as the wolves circle closer. If the past is doomed to haunt you then Bug’s life is full of ghosts.Cosby does an amazing job at highlighting the ever present merry-go-round of poverty, where every single missed payment means ten more problems. It’s easy to make a mistake and a monumental, often impossible, task to correct. The cycle of poverty and crime are an overlapping venn diagram, and Bug is a perfect example. He’s a great father, a (once) successful businessman, a devoted husband but you can do everything right and still lose. Still at the forefront of his mind through all his struggles is his family and what they mean to him and he to them. He’s more than an ex-con, despite how the world wants to label him.If an adrenaline fueled ride through hell and back sounds like your kind of Friday, then this is the book for you. Packed full of action from start to finish, with relatable and (more often than not) hilarious characters, Blacktop Wasteland is an exceptional crime-fiction novel that delivers what it promises: a wild ride!

Cosby is geweldig. Hij omschrijft zo raak wat er in mensen omgaat en wat hen drijft. Afgezien van de gebeurtenissen in dit boek, waarbij de ene gebeurtenis het logisch gevolg van de voorgaande is, is juist de interactie tussen personen wat de lezer op de punt van zijn stoel houdt. Ik zal niet spoilen dus laat het hierbij. Zijn andere boek, razorblade tears strijdt met dit boek om de eerste prijs. Geweldige boeken

This is page turning crime fiction at its best: excellent plotting, excellent construction and very well written. I enjoyed it immensely. The characters are believable and the plot is convincing within the narrative created by the author. Is it totally realistic? Probably not but I have never been to the part of the USA in which this book is set and after reading it, it won’t be at the top of my vacation list. But would I read another book by this author? You bet I would!

He felt it then. Felt it for the first time tonight. The high, the juice, the symbiotic relationship between man and machine. The thrumming vibrations that worked their way up from the blacktop through the wheels and suspension system like blood moving through veins until it reached his hands. The engine spoke to him in the language of horsepower and RPMs. It told him it yearned to run. The thrill had finally arrived. “Let’s fly,” Beauregard whispered.

Happy with the story