Review: RAZORBLADE TEARS

RAZORBLADE TEARS by SA Cosby (Headline, 2021)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

A black father and a white father join forces on a crusade for revenge against the people who murdered their gay sons, by S.A. Cosby, the award-winning author of Blacktop Wasteland.

Back in the first year of the pandemic, 2020, heist thriller-cum-rural noir BLACKTOP WASTELAND was arguably the crime novel of the year (later reinforced by it winning numerous awards in 2021) and its author SA Cosby the breakout star. It was deservedly feted across the world by readers, critics, and awards judges as heralding the arrival of a striking voice. But Cosby was no overnight success, he'd been working on his craft for twenty years before the wider reading world began to take big notice. 

BLACKTOP WASTELAND was a superb, snarling tale, bringing a fresh perspective to rural noir and infused with striking characters, plenty of action, and important underlying themes. It did leave a big question though – what would the blue-collar Virginia author do next, now he’d set the bar so high? 

Last year we got our answer, and somehow, incredibly, RAZORBLADE TEARS was even better. 

Quite simply, it's an astonishing novel. A tour de force of crime storytelling. 

Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee are two quite different men in the rural South, though they’ve a few things in common: they both know what it’s like behind bars, and they’re both fathers to gay sons who they loved but struggled to fully accept. A black man and a white man brought together by the murder of their boys, who’d married each other, Ike and Buddy Lee embark on a no-holds-barred search for those responsible. And are forced to confront their own prejudices along with those of others.

This is a Southern Gothic revenge thriller of the most outstanding kind: violent, thoughtful, emotionally hard-hitting, and brilliant. Cosby writes with a poetic ferocity, and RAZORBLADE TEARS is a modern masterpiece. Run don't walk to get it from your local bookshop or library, if you haven't devoured it already. I'll be pre-ordering anything Cosby writes in future. 

We're witnessing the ascent of a bright new star in our genre. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer who's interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals on three continents. He's been a judge of Australian, Scottish, and NZ crime writing awards, and is co-founder of Rotorua Noir. He's the author of the HRF Keating award-shortlisted non-fiction book SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, and the series editor of acclaimed anthology DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER. You can heckle him on Twitter.