All the Sinners Bleed

New York: Flat Iron Books, 2023. First U.S. Edition [Stated], Fourth Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Sam Sauter (Author photograph). [8], 338, [4] pages. S. A. Cosby (Shawn Andre Cosby - born 4 August 1973 in Newport News, Virginia) is a "Southern noir" crime fiction writer.[1] He resides in Gloucester, Virginia, on the York River. Cosby has published four crime novels: My Darkest Prayer, Blacktop Wasteland, Razorblade Tears, and All the Sinners Bleed. Cosby's 2021 novel, Razorblade Tears, debuted number 10 on the New York Times bestseller list. His previous novel, Blacktop Wasteland "...won a landslide of awards, including a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2020." It also was chosen as a 2020 New York Times Notable Book and charted at number 22 on that list. Additionally, Blacktop Wasteland is a 2021 Anthony Awards winner. The International Thriller Writers, an association spanning 49 countries, with a membership of 4,500 authors of the genre, "...named Cosby's novel Blacktop Wasteland the Best Hard Cover Fiction Novel of 2021." Both novels have been optioned for films. Jerry Bruckheimer's company "was among the group that won the film rights in an auction" for Razorblade Tears. Razorblade Tears was also featured on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show for Fallon's 2021 Summer Reads Book Club. The book was one of six contenders for a Jimmy Fallon read. All the Sinners Bleed is a 2023 novel written by S. A. Cosby. An African-American sheriff in a small, southern Virginia town faces off with a serial killer. An example of "southern noir", the book examines the racial and geopolitical fault lines of America's South. Well received by critics, All the Sinners Bleed had a 4.4 star average review on Goodreads, from over 18,000 ratings. Derived from a Kirkus review: A cat-and-mouse game between a twisted White religious killer and the first Black sheriff of a small Virginia community. Welcome to Charon County, a "teardrop-shaped peninsula" on the Chesapeake Bay with a cursed name and a blood-soaked history, where "equality's surest foothold was found on the autopsy table." The latest tragedy is a school shooting, terrible enough on its own but only the beginning of the fresh hell descending on Charon: Both the shooter and the lone victim are connected to a string of unthinkable abuses targeting Black children. And there is a mysterious killer still at large, his gruesome crimes steeped in Scripture and religious iconography. Recently elected Sheriff Titus Crown—organized, decisive, and conflicted between justice and vengeance—is on the case, using his FBI training to profile a madman. As in any good noir, everyone is an enemy and a suspect; Titus is hounded by bigots of all stripes: biased officers, casually racist locals, and venom-spitting White supremacists. Titus is basically the only three-dimensional character, though this isn't a major hindrance. The novel crackles along with each new clue and obstacle; scenes and dozens of characters are sketched with efficiency. The diffuse subjects of Titus' wrath are treated solemnly—institutional Christianity in particular takes it in the teeth. Tight pacing mostly keeps the contrivances at bay. Readers will cheer at Titus' brutal screeds against those who push him past the point of patience. Cosby's previous works, Blacktop Wasteland (2020) and Razorblade Tears (2021), have both been optioned for film adaptations, and his latest seems destined for the same treatment. Another provocative and page-turning entry in the Southern noir genre.