“‘Karma is what comes back to you for what you done. Getting what you deserve is just what finds you eventually,’ Dante said.”
S.A. Cosby has a Southern noir formula that works, as evidenced by his prolific output ("All The Sinners Bleed," "Razorblade Tears," "Blacktop Wasteland"). "King of Ashes" is his latest offering, and while it doesn't break a lot of new ground, it makes up for its limitations with another damn good story.
“A couple nights ago he’d been lying in bed next to a model whose claim to fame was being Ass Shaker #2 in an Usher video, and now he was bleeding on the floor of the building his father had built brick by agonizing brick.”
The Carruthers family has a lot of secrets, a built-in body-disappearer, and the bad luck to live in a small Virginia town with a murder rate seemingly near 100 percent. "King of Ashes" documents the slow-moving but systematic disintegration of that family, as the past and the present meet in horrifying and relentless ways.
“Roman was beginning to think the only difference between a tragedy and an opportunity was how much what was lost mattered.”
The novel doesn't require a whole lot of thought and features some significant plot holes, but makes it work on the power of a delightfully surprising revelation and the denial of a storybook ending. It's clear that Cosby has his very own genre -- and he isn't ready to give it up anytime soon.
“When they came for her this time, she’d scream like she did that night. A wild feral howl that asked an uncaring universe why this was happening. And the universe would do what it always did.”
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