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 ...

I’m so delighted that BOTM readers will get a chance to read Blacktop Wasteland! I was thrilled to share my thoughts with BOTM readers on S.A. Cosby’s last novel, Razorblade Tears, and it’s a pleasure to rave about this novel as well. Blacktop Wasteland is a superspeed-paced heist novel and a gripping rural noir, but most of all, it’s a story about a man coming to terms with family, identity, and parenthood.

The novel tells the story of Bug Montage, now an honest mechanic and owner of his own repair shop, but formerly the best wheelman on the Eastern Seaboard. When financial pressures become overwhelming, Bug agrees to take part in one last heist. But, things don’t go as planned, and Bug is dragged back into the life he’d hoped to escape.

Blacktop Wasteland is a fantastic thriller, but it’s so much more than that. It’s an examination of racism and poverty in the modern South, and the choices people make to transcend their circumstances. There’s also plenty of dark humor in the book, and Cosby depicts rural Virginia with an insider’s perspective. And did I mention that there are some of the most thrilling car chase scenes ever written in the novel! On so many levels, this is an enthralling book to read. I promise you’ll keep turning the pages for the plot and the action, but the character of Bug Montage will stay with you after you’ve finished it. It’s my honor to recommend Blacktop Wasteland; another of S.A. Cosby’s masterpieces.