Razorblade Tears

Every year there's a novel that's just everywhere in the bookish water you're currently swimming in. For me last year it was S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears which felt ubiquitous, as if it were algorithmically targeting me. It kept creeping in my feeds, insisting on being read but never quite making it into the cart. I'm glad I finally succumbed.

This is the perfectly violent, odd couple, revenge thriller. Ike “Riot” Randolph and Buddy Lee Jenkins are the most unlikely of companions. Sure they're both middle-aged men that have served hard time, but Buddy is an alcoholic, trailer park living redneck while Ike is trying to fly straight and narrow as an entrepreneurial Black man running a successful property maintenance business. It is only when their respective gay sons are brutally executed do they find common ground. The police investigation has gone cold and they're not content to let this heinous crime go unpunished.

It's a great premise that's easy to get wrong. Cosby shows great restraint portraying the oil and water buddy dynamic. We've seen countless iterations on screen and this could have been a cliched mess but every beat feels earned. Meanwhile the stakes keep getting ramped up. This is Elmore Leonard, meets Walter Mosley thrown in a blender with Quentin Tarrantino. While Ike and Buddy learn a little acceptance about their sons' lives it hasn't tempered their rage in any way and it makes for a satisfying ride the whole bloody way.