I picked this up by chance in my local library - and what a treat it turned out to be! I recently lost a week trying to cme to terms with William Faulkner's Absolom, Absolum (great writing but the action pushed so far back I simply couldn't engage). Blacktop Wasteland is set in a similar landscape but seen from a very different viewpoint.
To start with, the majority of characters are (like the author) black. Beauregard 'Bug' Montage learnt how to be a wheelman from his long-vanished father Ant. Indeed he served a manslaughter sentence in youth detention for running down a bunch of crooks threatening to kill Ant. Now he runs an auto repair shop in Red Hill with his cousin Kelvin and lives in a double-wide with his wife Kia and two boys. But he still has the car he did the killing with and races it sometimes in outlaw muscle-car drags.
A rival repair shop has opened up in town. Beauregard's business takes a hit. Debts are mounting. Then Ronnie Sessions turns up with a diamond heist for which he needs the best possible wheelman, which is Bug. Everyone knows Ronnie Sessions is white trash. He still owes Bug for the last job they did together. But Bug is desperate for ready cash. One big score will clear all his problems and allow him to refurbish his shop and thus see off the competition. And it turns out the hit is much bigger than anyone thought. Problem is, the jewelry store that held it was a front for mob moneylaundering.
The standout element of Blacktop Wasteland is the way Cosby handles the driving action. He takes us all the way into Bug's mind as he's doing it, the rational decision-making process and the visceral thrill alongside. We speed with Bug. We become totally invested in the outcome. Despite the brutality, the unsparing treatment of the ripples which spread out from his illegal actions, we want him to win.
Blacktop Wasteland is no mean debut. I'm looking out for Cosby's next.
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