Blacktop Wasteland: A Novel
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of the Year • BookPage’s #1 Mystery and Suspense of the Year • Sun Sentinel’s #1 Best Mystery of the Year
“I loved Blacktop Wasteland...[A] fast-paced, bareknuckle thriller.” -Stephen King
“A roaring, full-throttle thriller, crackling with tension and charm.” -The New York Times Book Review
"One of the year's strongest novels." -Sun Sentinel
A husband, a father, a son, a business owner...And the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi.
Beauregard “Bug” Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hard-working dad. Bug knows there’s no future in the man he used to be: known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best wheelman on the East Coast.
He thought he'd left all that behind him, but as his carefully built new life begins to crumble, he finds himself drawn inexorably back into a world of blood and bullets. When a smooth-talking former associate comes calling with a can't-miss jewelry store heist, Bug feels he has no choice but to get back in the driver's seat. And Bug is at his best where the scent of gasoline mixes with the smell of fear.
Haunted by the ghost of who he used to be and the father who disappeared when he needed him most, Bug must find a way to navigate this blacktop wasteland...or die trying.
Like Ocean’s Eleven meets Drive, with a Southern noir twist, S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is a searing, operatic story of a man pushed to his limits by poverty, race, and his own former life of crime.
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Community Reviews
Beauregard "Bug" Montage: husband, father, honest car mechanic. But he was once known - from North Carolina to the beaches of Florida - as the best getaway driver on the East Coast. Just like his father, who disappeared many years ago.
After a series of financial calamities (worsened by the racial prejudices of the small town he lives in) Bug reluctantly takes part in a daring diamond heist to solve his money troubles - and to go straight once and for all. However, when it goes horrifically wrong, he's sucked into a grimy underworld which threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear . . .
This book was one of the July group reads for the Crime Mystery Thriller group and the one that I voted for. I hadn’t read anything from S.A. Crosby before, but I had recently added his All the Sinners Bleed to my to-read list so I thought I would include this one too. Sooo glad I did!!!
The book summary is kind of vague but there are two primary storylines going on in the story. There is the planning and executing and surviving of the heist and then there is the story of why Bug is even doing this job. Bug, who, for many years, has been living a clean and upstanding life (he spent five years in juvie for manslaughter) taking care of his wife, three kids, a sick mother, and a struggling business. Bug’s business is struggling because a big, corporate, auto shop moved into town and is taking a lot of business from him (he was the only shop in town) and he’s going to lose the shop because he can’t keep up with the rent and expenses. His sick mother is on the verge of being evicted from the nursing home because of Medicaid cutting her off. Lastly, his daughter decides not to go to college because she can’t afford it and doesn’t want to get bogged down with school loans and one of his sons needs braces and their crappy insurance doesn’t cover it. There is a passage between Bugs and one of his sons about staying in school and getting an education that was heartbreaking to read:
“When you’re a black man in America, you live with the weight of people’s low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it’s a race, everybody else has a head start and you’re dragging those low expectations behind you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations, allows you to cut them loose. Cause that’s what freedom is, being able to let things go and nothing is more important than freedom. Nothing.”
Bugs needs money and doesn’t say no to an offer to be the getaway driver for a jewelry store heist. It’s supposed to be a quick in and out and Bugs cut will get him out of the financial hole that he is in, and his family will be taken care of. Unfortunately, he has to partner up with a crew of morons and because Bugs doesn’t trust them to plan a perfect heist, Bugs takes control of the planning, and he plans and executes the perfect getaway. WOW!!! The getaway was like a scene out of a Fast and Furious movie!!!
Unfortunately, the morons made a mess out of the heist in the jewelry story and the crew learned that they ripped off a pretty scary person, who tracks them down (after leaving a trail of bodies). Now, if Bugs, along with his family, is going to get out of this alive, he has to execute another perfectly planned heist for the guy they initially ripped off. After that, there is another Fast and Furious getaway scene (10x better than the first one) that Bugs planned and executed. The final scene was yet another Fast and Furious getaway scene that was as crazy as the others. Very satisfying!!!
It was a late-night last night because I could not go to sleep until I knew how it ended. Overall, this was a intense and thrilling story with a lot of exciting scenes and some really sad ones too. Crosby is a good writer and a phenomenal storyteller. Makes me excited about reading his other book on my to-read list.
The book summary is kind of vague but there are two primary storylines going on in the story. There is the planning and executing and surviving of the heist and then there is the story of why Bug is even doing this job. Bug, who, for many years, has been living a clean and upstanding life (he spent five years in juvie for manslaughter) taking care of his wife, three kids, a sick mother, and a struggling business. Bug’s business is struggling because a big, corporate, auto shop moved into town and is taking a lot of business from him (he was the only shop in town) and he’s going to lose the shop because he can’t keep up with the rent and expenses. His sick mother is on the verge of being evicted from the nursing home because of Medicaid cutting her off. Lastly, his daughter decides not to go to college because she can’t afford it and doesn’t want to get bogged down with school loans and one of his sons needs braces and their crappy insurance doesn’t cover it. There is a passage between Bugs and one of his sons about staying in school and getting an education that was heartbreaking to read:
“When you’re a black man in America, you live with the weight of people’s low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it’s a race, everybody else has a head start and you’re dragging those low expectations behind you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations, allows you to cut them loose. Cause that’s what freedom is, being able to let things go and nothing is more important than freedom. Nothing.”
Bugs needs money and doesn’t say no to an offer to be the getaway driver for a jewelry store heist. It’s supposed to be a quick in and out and Bugs cut will get him out of the financial hole that he is in, and his family will be taken care of. Unfortunately, he has to partner up with a crew of morons and because Bugs doesn’t trust them to plan a perfect heist, Bugs takes control of the planning, and he plans and executes the perfect getaway. WOW!!! The getaway was like a scene out of a Fast and Furious movie!!!
Unfortunately, the morons made a mess out of the heist in the jewelry story and the crew learned that they ripped off a pretty scary person, who tracks them down (after leaving a trail of bodies). Now, if Bugs, along with his family, is going to get out of this alive, he has to execute another perfectly planned heist for the guy they initially ripped off. After that, there is another Fast and Furious getaway scene (10x better than the first one) that Bugs planned and executed. The final scene was yet another Fast and Furious getaway scene that was as crazy as the others. Very satisfying!!!
It was a late-night last night because I could not go to sleep until I knew how it ended. Overall, this was a intense and thrilling story with a lot of exciting scenes and some really sad ones too. Crosby is a good writer and a phenomenal storyteller. Makes me excited about reading his other book on my to-read list.