Nice and noir was Nyren’s description of my first novel when he turned it down for Putnam (before it was taken by S. A. Cosby’s publisher). This is nice and noir in various ways. It is the story of a wheelman’s final job (or so he hopes and thinks). Beauregard ‘Bug’ Montage is up against it. His rural Virginia auto repair shop is losing business to an upstart local who won the lottery, built his own place and is underselling Bug. His son needs braces; his daughter wants to go to VCU, he’s behind on his mortgage payments on his business and his mother is about to be evicted from her nursing home. Bug doesn’t want to follow in his fondly-remembered ne-er do well father Anthony’s absentee footsteps but he needs big bucks and he needs them now. The gig that presents itself—the takedown of a jewelry store—and the escape across backwoods Virginia will involve Bug with some unreliable dental-challenged hillbillies and take him down a path with more curves, hard turns and bumps in the road than he could ever anticipate. The question that looms over the book is: will he survive? Will he survive intact? What will happen to his family, already consigned to a double wide in the boonies? We know from the get-go that they’re not going to strike it rich, extricate themselves with impunity, walk away with the swag and move to pastures new. The tone and texture tell us that; they also tell us to buckle our seat belts. I was reminded here of several of my favorite stories: Don Winslow’s THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE, the story of a one-last-gig mafia hitman who discovers that things aren’t quite what they seem; and two great tales of the results of easy money: A SIMPLE PLAN and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. That’s the league we’re dealing in here, with fascinating characters, a stark setting, dazzling plotting and eternal themes. I won’t spoil the ending but I’ll tell you what I was expecting and hoping for. When James Ellroy, the master of what he calls ‘tragic realism’, approached Dick Contino and told him he’d like to write his story Contino asked him what it would be about. ‘Heavily-compromised redemption’ was Ellroy’s answer. Bottom line: this book is being hyped to death, in part because the emergence of a black writer with great chops is always headline-worthy. There are racial themes running through the story, of course, but the book succeeds because of the author’s skills and because of his ability to plot like a bandit and tell a story that never depends on race for its deserved plaudits. Enjoy it, but gird your reader loins. This is not going to be a Sunday drive in the country. Five stars.

As the book cover states, “Beauregard “Bug” Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hardworking dad”. But there is another side of Bug. The one who thrives on the darker, criminal side of life. Abandoned as a child by his free wheeling, fast car loving, speed demon dad who lived on the other side of the law, Bug knew how to drive. His reputation as a wheelman is the stuff legends are made of. But times were hard. Bug’s business was suffering, one kid needed braces, the other kid glasses, the rent is due, and his cantankerous mother is about to be kicked out of the nursing home if Bug can’t come up with $48,000. That’s not chump change. This guy he knows is planning to rob a jewelry store…uncut diamonds…and needs a driver. Just one more drive …easy money. In and out. One more job.just to get over this financial hurdle. As with all S.A. Cosby’s books, this one is fast paced, high action, gritty, seedy, a view of the underbelly of life. Bug knows people. Bug knows cars. Bug knows how to drive. But this time is different. This time the other guys went too far. And Bug had a score to settle. Five stars for this quick read and, oddly enough, a fondness for Bug.

When you really love a subgenre, you don’t want to read the same thing over and over again, but you do want to see tweaks and new takes on your cherished tropes. Blacktop Wasteland falls right square in the country noir subgenre. It distinguishes itself from the field not just with execution but with a protagonist who is a wheelman (and all the car chases the choice suggests) and African-American. Bug is a family man. He has two boys with his wife and an older daughter with another woman. He is close with his cousin and his uncle. He is a businessman. He owns a local auto mechanic shop. He is also a criminal. He made the money to buy his double-wide and start the shop with money made working as a wheelman for crews in Virginia and North Carolina. It’s a life he put behind him until the bills start to pile a little too far up and Ronnie frigging Sessions shows up looking for a wheelman. Sessions is “known for two things: his twenty-three Elvis tattoos, and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down with titanium fasteners.” Bug knows he’s bad news, but he also knows he needs money fast and bad. It goes about as poorly as expected. Bug is a great character. He fits directly into a country noir mold as a guy who “dream of living in a double-wide down a dirt lane. At least it has “running water and a roof that didn’t leak like a sieve. A house where everyone had their own room and there wasn’t a slop bucket in the corner.” Bug is also a hard man and a very competent criminal. Noir fiction is all about “the long drop off the short pier” and “the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” In country noir, there are no piers, “but the people still find a way to fall.” I love the motif, but it can lead to sad sack characters who the passive receptacle to events outside their control. Things will happen outside Bug’s control, but he is not a man who sits easy with the idea of being a product of his environment instead of the other way around. He is quick, vicious, and effective at dealing out violence. He is also a careful, canny criminal. He isn’t just better than good behind the wheel of a car. He knows the business of robbery. He is a competent, cautious planner. And he has the skills to turn a nondescript car into a getaway vehicle, get away in it, then make it disappear. (His pride and joy is his father’s Plymouth Duster, but he is smart enough to not use it for a job. Is there a history with his dad? Of course there is; this is country noir.) Bug’s competence creates his core conflict as a character—a creeping suspicion that wheelman Bug is the real Bug and family man and businessman Bug just an act. When his cousin asks if it feels good prepping for a job, Bug says ‘no’ but is self-aware enough to admit to himself that “It felt better than good. It felt right. It was like he had found a comfortable pair of old shoes that he had thought were lost forever.” Blacktop Wasteland has everything I ask for from a country noir. A solid plot. Violence. Colorful characters. Family drama. Pulp action sensibilities and literary character beats. I have no real quibbles. But while it rises easily above disposal crime fiction, it never quite reaches the literary heights of a Ron Rash or Daniel Woodrell book. And can a written chase scene really compare with well crafted, expensive movie chase?

Have read all of the authors books. This was one of my favorites!! Great characters, good plot line, well crafted story! Love all the references to Virginia vernacular, as it makes me miss home!!!