Bob Moyer reviews a new novel that seems to fit into a genre that might be called Southern noir psychological family drama – or thriller. Whatever the classification, the book sounds well written.
Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer
KING OF ASHES. By S.A. Cosby. Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar. 333 pages. $28.99
Everything burns. In S. A. Cosby’s new novel, that’s the nihilist philosophy with which Keith Carruthers counseled his children from their birth. He founded and ran the Caruthers Cremation Services in Jefferson Run, Va., with that guiding principle. His oldest son, Roman, escaped the stench and burning to Atlanta, where he made a fortune managing money, particularly for musicians. The two younger siblings, Dante and Nevea, stayed home to help with the business. Roman hasn’t been home for years — until he gets a phone call that his daddy has been run off the road into a coma. It seems Dante got himself into a situation with some gangsters, and they’re threatening Roman’s family. He has to go home to straighten things out.
Things don’t go well. In his first meeting with the hoods Dante owes money to, Roman and Dante get a brutal reminder (one that will make the reader flinch) that these are real gangsters, not the rap gangsters he manages with persuasive talk back in Atlanta. No, from that point forward, Roman sets out to make sure at all costs that nothing happens to his family. He calls his colleague Khalil (think Hawk in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books) to help him out.
When Khalil arrives, Cosby’s prose starts burning across the pages. He lays down a study of crime overtaking a small town with the skill of a pulp legend like Jim Thompson.
There’s one difference — Thompson’s town was white; Cosby captures the criminal culture of a Black town. A roller coaster of violence ensues — stabbings, drive-by shootings, assassinations, fire-bombing, car chases, mutilations and, of course, more than one body shoved into the maws of the crematorium furnace (Roman keeps the unlabeled ashes on a nearby shelf). Roman steps over many a line to save his family,
Woven throughout the narrative is a tragedy that hangs over the three siblings — the disappearance of their mother. She just vanished one night, and they never heard of her, or what might have happened. At times, the obsession overwhelms them, and seems to hold up the story, as each sibling manifests self-destructive behaviors. There is method to Cosby’s manipulation, however. He brings the book to a rousing conclusion that resolves all the danger and mystery. No one writes Southern psychological family noir like Cosby — in fact, he may have invented the genre.