Before we get rolling on a discussion of one of the best books I have read so far in 2020, we need to do a bit of clarification housekeeping. I have seen this author listed as both “S. A. Cosby” and “Shawn A. Cosby.” He has published a few critically acclaimed short stories in hard-to-find (though not impossible) places, wrote a fantasy novel some years back, and published MY DARKEST PRAYER, a critically acclaimed work of crime fiction, in 2019. Whatever name he comes to be known as, BLACKTOP WASTELAND will be the book that gets him the notice, attention and readership that he has earned and deserves.
 
Beauregard “Bug” Montage is up against it from the opening paragraphs of this stark, gritty novel. A husband, father and mechanic who owns his own shop, he quietly keeps his eye on the ball, even as a competing outfit in Red Hill County, Virginia, threatens his business. Montage is behind on the mortgage of the building where he works and enters an illegal race with a purse that will help him pay his monthly expenses.

"What is perhaps most compelling about BLACKTOP WASTELAND is the manner in which Cosby, with great subtlety, whispers to the reader “What would YOU do?” if faced with the same problems and possessed of the same skills as Montage."

It should be noted that Montage is an even better driver --- legal or illegal --- than he is a mechanic. Even though he wins, he loses, a pattern that repeats itself throughout the course of the book. He gets hit with other financial fastballs, personally and professionally, in short order. So when an associate from a prior deal that went south shows up needing a wheelman, Montage wants to say no but cannot, in spite of his wife warning him off the job and reminding him of the evil of bad companions.

Things go from bad to good to bad to very bad, as Montage makes a desperate plan to save everything he loves, even at the almost certain cost of his own life. Among his few remaining assets: a seemingly bottomless well of determination and an ability to make himself one with anything that has four wheels. But neither may be enough to get him to the other side.
 
BLACKTOP WASTELAND is an edgy study in dual natures existing in the same person at the same time. Montage --- the irony of the protagonist’s name is not lost in the narrative --- is a man attempting to break the pattern of his own upbringing and only partially succeeding. Ultimately, his greatest attribute is his ability to acknowledge his own mistakes and shortcomings, even when it comes too late to withstand the results. There is violence here, which is somewhat offset by occasional tenderness and introspection.

What is perhaps most compelling about BLACKTOP WASTELAND is the manner in which Cosby, with great subtlety, whispers to the reader “What would YOU do?” if faced with the same problems and possessed of the same skills as Montage. The answers are not easy ones. Other questions are left unanswered at the close of the book. It would be grand to see if the characters who make it to the end return to answer them. These folks, not to mention Cosby, are way too interesting to languish in limbo.