Shawn Cosby is the master of Southern Crime Fiction. Additionally, his grasp of the perils of family dynamics played out over generations and tangled up amongst loyalty and betrayal like kudzu vines, could be taught as case studies in a psychology course.
In KING OF ASHES, Roman Curruthers, an Atlanta financial wizard, thinks he's escaped his dying hometown of Jefferson Run. But like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, just when he thinks he is out, he gets pulled back in. When his father ends up in a coma after a suspicious auto accident, Roman comes home to help his younger sister at the family's crematorium. Things deteriorate when he learns his addict younger brother, Dante, is in debt to local gangsters after losing a load of drugs he was trying to sell. Roman hopes his talent at making quick big bucks for his clients will be enough to placate the thugs as he tries to get his brother out of debt while also dealing with the surfacing of secrets of how and why his mother disappeared.
As with many of Cosby's stories, there are no true innocents. Instead of good and evil, like the ashes of the crematorium, everything is gray and gritty. There will be a sort of justice. However, it will be bitter and costly. King of Ashes cements S.A. Cosby as one of the best crime writers of his generation.