This is the book review podcast, and I'm Gilbert Cruz.

This week I have on S.A. Cosby, Sean Cosby, the crime writer behind all the sinners bleed, blacktop wasteland, and razor blade tears.

His new work is King of Ashes, and it's set in the state of Virginia where Cosby is from

and where his previous books have all been set.

Sean, welcome to the Book Review podcast.

Thank you guys for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So to state the obvious crime novels, thrillers, very hard to talk about because the plot, the twist, that's the whole thing. You don't want to mess it out. I don't want to mess it up for readers. So I'm going to have you do it. Tell us who is Roman, who's Roman Carruthers, the main character here in King of Ashes. and why does he need to go back to his hometown, Jefferson Run?

Roman Carruthers is the eldest child of the Carruthers family. He's the older brother to his middle sister, Nevea, and his baby brother Dante.

At the beginning of the book, he's living a pretty fantastic life in Atlanta. He's a financial advisor.

He's living a very fun, exciting, hedonistic life,

far away from the ashes and flames of his family's business, which is a crematorium,

an industrial crematorium back home in Virginia, Jefferson, right? At the beginning of the book,

he gets a call from his sister, Avaya, that their father, Keith, has been in a car accident,

and he's in a coma. So, of course, Brom Roman goes home. And once he goes home, he finds out that the accident may not have been an accident.

And he learns that his brother Dante is involved with very dangerous criminals who's put the entire family at risk.

Roman flees Jefferson Run.

We learn later on the book, various reasons why.

And of course, the way you write it, I understand

why someone would want to leave this particular town, which we could talk about. But I found

there's also something universal here, which is the desire to want to leave home, and then the

futility, perhaps, of trying to escape your family, of trying to escape your past, of trying to escape that

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