King of Ashes: A Novel

“Pick up the novel everyone will be talking about.” —The Atlantic
“Dark, riveting, and accomplished.” —Washington Post
“Propulsive and powerful. . . A gripping roller coaster ride of escalating danger.” —New York Times Book Review

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

Amazon Best Books of the Year So Far 2025 • Indie Next pick for June 2025 • Library Reads pick for June 2025 • Book of the Month Club pick • Starred Library Journal • Starred Kirkus • Los Angeles Times 30 Must-Read Books for Summer • NPR’s 10 books we're looking forward to this spring • New York Post’s Must-Read New Thriller Books • New York Times’s 12 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To • USA TODAY’s Most Anticipated Books of summer 2025 • The Atlantic’s 24 Books to Read This Summer • TIME’s 16 Most Anticipated Books to Read This Summer • People’s The 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025 • Vulture’s 28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer • New York Times’s Books to Read This Summer • New York Times’s 4 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To • Washington Post’s 30 Books to Read This Summer • New York Post’s 30 Best Beach Reads

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.

“A fast-paced thriller that will have readers asking whether the ends justify the means if there is no end in sight. . . Reminiscent of the great tragedies, this is Cosby at his best.”
—Library Journal, starred review