Blacktop Wasteland

We've seen this story before. Ex-criminal gets out of the life and manages to go legit, but they eventually find themselves in a financial pinch. They hear the siren call of their old ways pulling them back for ~one more job~, but then things spiral out of control. It's a good story, so that's why it's been done before and why we'll see it again.

What sets this one apart for me personally is a satisfyingly interesting protagonist. Beauregard ("Bug" to his friends) is known for being a competent getaway driver, but he's a lot more than that. He is a meticulous planner who layers contingencies upon contingencies and has borderline eidetic memory which helps him come up with airtight schemes, so long as everyone sticks to the plan. Unfortunately, not everyone else can.

This is a tense and violent book, reminiscent of Pulp Fiction with regional crime lords sending hitmen and whatnot after each other. There are some characters that (I felt) were very clearly going to have bad things happen to them and that there was no way they were going to make it to the end of a story like this unscathed, but I still managed to be surprised by the inevitable.

Pick this one up if you're in the mood for a darker crime thriller where the cops are barely present and it's more criminal vs. criminal.

This book should be a movie. Full Stop (with all the force of standing on the brakes after driving a van into the back of a rolling truck at 60mph).

It's like Fast & the Furious + Oceans 11, but with really solid character development, subtle examination of racism, and a strong sense of place.

Before reading this, I would've dismissed heist plots as "not my thing." But this is so much more than that. It's riveting. The protagonist is complicated and sympathetic and talented, and the supporting cast of characters are all flawed in different ways. I don't think I've ever read a book set in Richmond, North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Mountains, but having spent a lot of time in those places, this book did a great job capturing the vibe and making me realize what might be happening just out of sight.

SA Cosby is a great writer. I look forward to reading more of his books.