Spoiler Free Review of King of Ashes

One day Roman, a slick talking financial whiz from ATL gets a call from his estranged sister that he needs to come home. Their father has been in an accident and is in a coma. Rome wraps up business and heads back to his hometown of Jefferson Run, Virginia, and when he arrives he learns that there was more to his father’s accident that meets the eye.

In King of Ashes, Cosby deftly employs the typical crime fiction tropes (crooked cops, drugs, bang bang blow blow shootouts), but what really hooked me in was the setting. In the book marketing world the word “southern noir” has been popularized as of late, and while I’m usually skeptical of trends disguised as micro-genres, the phrase fits. The people, the topics of conversation, and cultural references are deeply enmeshed with the politics of the place. Though Jefferson Run is fictional, it feels as real as any small, neglected black town in America. Crooked politicians, community divestment, family squabbles over money. Jefferson Run is a microcosm of our country and all the issues plaguing it, and the protagonist, Roman, shows how far people will go to overcome it all.

Yet, as serious as this novel is at times, Cosby isn’t afraid of finding humor in the depravity. A lover named Jealousy, playful references to “The Wire”, and a man nicknamed Yellaboy because “I had jaundice as a kid, not ‘cause I’m light skin ‘cause I ain’t”.

Equal parts harrowing and hilarious, this is the kind of novel that’ll ruin your sleep schedule, as you find yourself reading into the late hours of the night, quietly saying to yourself, one more page, one more page. If you want a novel steeped in southern black culture by a writer who’s a clear master of his craft, then I suggest King of Ashes. I pushed aside some of my personal obligations to plow through it, and though I’m behind on a few deadlines, I have no regrets.  It’s the first book I’ve read by SA Cosby, but lord knows it won’t be the last.