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A review by Berkley Wendell Semple A CREMATORIUM plays a central role in S.A. Cosby’s searing new Southern noir novel, King of Ashes (Headline, £17.96). It prefigures the hellish terrain of this violent, morally charged thriller. The crematorium, as one diabolical gangster in the story calls it, is a place where “everything burns”—even the living. The title could not be more fitting: there is fire, there is heat, and there are plenty of bodies to feed the flames in this scorching thrill ride of a novel. This is Cosby’s fifth novel, and as with his previous works, the American South serves as both setting and character—a haunted land of ghosts, sins, and men who know only how to answer violence with more violence. In King of Ashes, these men wield not just guns but also garden shears, hammers, crab mallets, and, fittingly, the consuming fire of the crematorium itself. Cosby’s South recalls that of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series (Heaven’s Prisoners, A Morning for Flamingos, Purple Cane Road), which meditate on violence and evil’s moral resonance, and of Daniel Woodrell’s Appalachian noirs (Give Us a Kiss, The Death of Sweet Mister, Winter’s Bone), where a gun is often the first—and last—word in any argument. Like those worlds, Cosby’s is thick with outlaws and sinners, a sultry inferno populated by men and women whose hands are never clean. At its core, King of Ashes is about violence and the warped masculinity that feeds it. It is a revenge tale, but one steeped in sorrow—a story of hard choices and human failure. Yet, as in all of Cosby’s novels, family remains the beating heart. His breakout book, Razorblade Tears, told of two fathers—one Black, one white—avenging the murder of their married gay sons, and was praised by Barack Obama, among others. King of Ashes is a different book but equally compelling—a story of revenge and damnation, rooted in a Black, middle-class Virginia family that owns a crematorium. The Caruthers family has earned the American Dream through hard work and sacrifice: a father, a mother, and their three children—Roman, the eldest; Nevaeh; and Dante. But when the mother disappears without a trace, that dream begins to decay. The family carries on, but the warmth and closeness erode. Roman leaves for college and becomes a successful money manager for rappers and athletes, while Dante and Nevaeh remain behind, tending to the family business and its endless parade of ashes. The novel quietly suggests that achieving the American Dream is hard—but keeping it alive is even harder. Twenty years later, tragedy strikes again. The Caruthers patriarch is run off the road and left comatose. Roman returns home from Atlanta, only to discover that his brother Dante, now a drug addict, owes a dangerous sum to ruthless gangsters—a “family” of a different, blood-soaked kind. The novel’s tension turns on Roman’s desperate attempt to save his brother and what remains of his family from certain destruction. Violence, in Cosby’s world, is always the first resort, and it arrives here with shocking suddenness and devastating impact. Cosby is a master of pacing and atmosphere. His depictions of violence are visceral yet never gratuitous; the emotional toll is as vivid as the blood. Nevaeh’s own quest to uncover the truth about her mother’s disappearance adds another layer of pathos and tragedy—what she discovers is deeply human, and what she does about it is unforgettable. Shock and sorrow course through King of Ashes like a steady drumbeat. The prose, as always with Cosby, is lyrical and finely tuned—metaphoric, muscular, and steeped in Southern cadence. His work stands as proof that crime fiction, at its best, can be both literary and thrilling. King of Ashes accomplishes what great thrillers should: it grips, surprises, and leaves the reader both shaken and moved. Its characters are complex and achingly real; its momentum, relentless. This is Southern noir at its finest—philosophical, propulsive, and unforgettable. Dark, tragic, and deeply human, King of Ashes shows us the terrible cost of survival and the consuming fire of love and loyalty. Everything burns—and yet, somehow, something still endures.
