The location:
South central Virginia. Maybe 1.5hr north of Winston-Salem
The players:
Beauregard (Bug) Montage and wife Kia. A high school age daughter and 2 boys on the verge of puberty. Cousin Kelvin. Bug and Kelvin own a car repair shop in Red Hill, VA. Losing some money since someone opened a Prestige Car Care franchise. Boonie is Bug's surrogate father. Runs an auto salvage yard and has been known to turn his back when someone needs to borrow his car crusher.
Ronnie and Reggie Sessions. Poster children for the concept of 'poor white trash.' Ronnie always seems to have a plan to hit it big so he can head for highways that end at a beach side Tiki bar and all the umbrella drinks he can stand. Reggie follows whatever Ronnie plans.
Lazarus (Lazy for short) is a regional bad guy who runs women, drugs, weapons, drugs and anything else that'll turn a profit. Shade is Lazy's prime competition. Shade is based in NC and wants to expand to VA. Lazy will do anything to keep that from happening. Neither one is to be underestimated.
Now you have the players. The book opens at a street race in SW Virginia. Bug has his daddy's old Duster. He and Reggie are looking to race for some serious cash. Bug needs money. The mortgage on his garage is overdue. His mom's nursing home want's to toss the old battleax for non-payment after Medicaid cut her off. His daughter has been accepted to VCU and he needs tuition money. His two boys need either glasses or braces. Bug really needs the money.
He wins the race. After the race, his opponent sets Bug up with some phony cops and a roadside heist. Bug manages to leave with some money, but far less than he'd hoped for.
Ronnie Sessions comes to Bug with a sure thing. A girl he knows works in a jewelry store in Newport News. Her boss lets it out that about $1.5 million in loose diamonds is coming to the store. He and brother Reggie and maybe one other guy will hold up the store. All Bug has to do is drive because Bug's rep is that he is the best wheelman on the east coast. Once they get the stones, Ronnie's DC-based fence will buy the gems. Bug's take on a 4-way cut will cover his immediate money needs.
Reluctantly, Bug agrees, much to Kia's chagrin. The heist goes down, but not without some gun play. A jewelry store gets robbed, the cops may show a little interest. But a dead patron? The cops will be coming hard. Ronnie fences the stones, Bug gets his cut. Pays down on all that debt with a little left over.
Here's where Lazy comes into play. He owned that store. It was a middle stop in processing stolen money and precious stones. And he ain't happy. Not one bit. The store manager winds up dead. Ronnie's girl in MIA. Ronnie's been seen throwing some money around, exactly what Bug said not to do.
Lazy's guys close in on Bug's family. Not smart. But Lazy sees a way to take care of Bug's debt to Lazy from the theft and a way to bust Shade. Lazy has a guy on the inside of Shade's operation. A truck loaded with contraband platinum in coming through to Shade. If Bug will hijack it, Lazy will forget about the jewelry store.
Sounds simple enough, right? But the east coast's best wheelman has his own plans and wants to bust up not just Lazy but Shade, too. Clean up that section of the middle Atlantic.
If one had to ask about the book's overall theme, it's probably something to do with the duality of man. His personal yin and yang. The good and the evil. As Bug says, "I used to think of myself as two people. I was Bug with his Duster sometimes and Beauregard with his wife and kids, ran a business, went to school plays. Bug . . . he robbed banks and armored cars, drove 100 mph on hairpin curves, threw people who killed those he loved into a car crusher. But you can't be two types of beasts. Eventually, one of the beasts gets loose and wrecks shop." And the book is about how well, or how poorly, Beauregard or Bug keeps the other beast at bay. What Bug's family has to go through may have you levitating off your chair.
Whether it's his Duster, a wrecker, a beat up panel truck, caddy, or some junker Boonie found, Bug will push Beauregard to the background when he gets behind the wheel of a car, because that's were it all makes sense. And when a car won't do, his .45 will because "you can't argue with a .45."
Cosby is an Anthony Award winning author with around a half dozen books to his credit. Too bad my county library has only this title; the purchasing dept is staffed by idiots. I will find the others. Count on it. This book is drop dead spectacular. Stellar writing, stellar plotting, and stellar character development. I haven't been this enamored with a new (to me) author since stumbling across Brian Panowich and his Bull Mountain trilogy. This is Southern Noir of the first order. No joke and no hyperbole. A great book by a great writer. Found an interview with Cosby and he said that Hollywood has been sniffing around. This would be a spectacular movie or limited series. The book is so well written that you practically see the storyboards in your mind's eye while reading. In that interview, some delusional critic complained that Cosby used too many similes. I've never heard such a foolish statement. The similes are what make this book come to life. While reading, I thought Cosby combines the talents of two power rotation authors: George Pelacanos, for the gritty dialogue, and Brian Panowich, for his ability to stage the southern scene. For me, putting Cosby up there with Pelacanos and Panowich is running in some high cotton.
Get this book. You won't be disappointed. You'll tear through it just like I did. The way Bug's daddy taught him how to drive:
"Drive it like you stole it."
East Coast Don
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