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    Razorblade Tears: A Novel
    Razorblade Tears: A Novel
    Razorblade Tears: A Novel
    Ebook389 pages7 hours

    Razorblade Tears: A Novel

    By S. A. Cosby

    4/5

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    *INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • Book of the Month’s Book of the Year Finalist
    “Provocative, violent — beautiful and moving, too.” —Washington Post
    “Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times.” —Michael Connelly
    “A tour de force – poignant, action-packed, and profound.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

    Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

    The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

    Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

    Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

    Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.

    “A visceral full-body experience, a sharp jolt to the heart, and a treat for the senses…Cosby's moody southern thriller marries the skillful action and plotting of Lee Child with the atmosphere and insight of Attica Locke.” —NPR

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 6, 2021
    ISBN9781250252722
    Author

    S. A. Cosby

    S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award-winning writer from Southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others. When not writing, he is an avid hiker and chess player.

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    Reviews for Razorblade Tears

    4/5

    386 ratings35 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A real page turner. Looking forward to the next book.
    • 4/5
      Awesome. S.A. Johnson’s command of story, language, pacing & heart held me in awe.
    • 5/5
      I'm a little bit out of words with this one. I don't really read violent noir, so I was a bit cautious picking this up, but damn was it worth the risk.

      On the surface, this is about the vendetta of two men who were shitty fathers who have just buried their sons. This book is about their journey taking out their guilt and regret by hunting down the people responsible for killing their children. It's violent, at times gory, and I'm sure it's all kinds of unrealistic (though to be fair, how the hell would I know). But it's very well written, fast paced, and action packed. Also very satisfying, as any revenge fantasy would be.

      But beyond that, this is a book that has some very good, very organic discussions about racism, homophobia, guilt, regret, fatherhood, vengeance, hate crime, love, and family. Ike and Buddy Lee aren't really friends to begin with, rather just two men united by a shared enemy and a shared grief. Through out the book they hash out their thoughts and feelings on many a topic, both shedding light on their own points of view while learning to see where the other is coming from. What I liked most about the discussions was the lack of preachiness, and the acknowledgment of some shades of grey.

      This book gave me a lot to think about, and it also made me cry. I think I was already crying reading the first chapters, and I cried reading the last chapter too. A very well crafted book that I'm glad I ended up picking up.
    • 5/5
      Once in a great while a book comes along that you would think you would probably just glance at for one reason or another, but you find the description looks interesting and your friend has read it and recommended it. You think "why not?" and start reading several hours later...you find you can't stop. In a nutshell it's about two fathers that risk their very lives to avenge their murdered sons who neither approved of their lifestyles or that they were married to one another. All that was left other than the memories, was a 3-year-old daughter who called both the sons "daddy" and both of her father's avenging fathers, Ike and Buddy Lee, "grandpa". The book is extremely graphic. The characters are specifically what they are and are vividly rendered. The author paints a bleak yet thoroughly compelling picture of their task and how it is carried out to the bitter end. Buddy Lee Jenkins and Ike Randolph are virtual strangers, one black and one white who should have become a blended family when their sons, Isiah and Derek, fell in love and married. However, bigotry and bad judgment are hard habits to break, so that happy family never happened. Tragedy accomplishes what love failed to... to bring the two fathers together and have them stand up for their sons. United in grief, guilt and anger, Ike and Buddy Lee set out to accomplish what the police wouldn't... to solve the crime and make the killers pay. The bodies pile up quickly. It's both bloody and graphic...but it fits in so many different ways. S.A. Cosby's writing is precise, emotionally engaging and cinematic, with character and relationships reigning supreme. As hard as sometimes the reading was, I found that I was always rooting for the two men with homophobia becoming less of an issue for them and regret and revenge taking the place of it in their hearts. Throughout, I was always on their side and will admit to shedding a few tears at the end. Thank you, Lynda for thinking of me with this one.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A remarkable gritty action-packed story by a new author that is not for the faint-hearted. I also like that it took the opportunity to insert discussions about racism and ant-LGBTQ bias. I look forward to reading more by this fine author.
    • 4/5
      Ike and Buddy, two rough characters, Southern ex-cons, one black and one white, set out to avenge their gay sons who were shot and killed, execution style outside of a club. It’s too late to make up for the harm caused by their homophobic attitudes, but not too late the find the killers and take revenge.It’s an interesting story of an unlikely friendship, we see the two protagonists evolve as the novel develops and under all of the murder and mayhem, of which there is a lot, there is a plea for understanding and acceptance of those who don’t fall into the novel’s villain class, i.e., a killer biker klan and a soulless politician.This is a book written to be a movie. The shootout scenes are movie-style apocolyptic, the bad guys unbelievably (well, almost, because when it comes to bad nothing is really unbelievable) bad and the good guys fit the standard trope of hard on the inside but deep-down good. Denzel Washington for Ike and Sam Elliot for Buddy, these roles literally (well, at least the role of Buddy, if we are to be literal) were written for them.I listened to this on Audible. The reader’s accents, other than the one for Ike, were generally almost laughably bad, but since this book was mostly an entertainment and nothing more, I kind of enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      I feel horrible that I did not enjoy this book more. I almost DNF'd it about 10 times and decided to just keep rolling with it. I did listen to the audiobook and I think that helped. The narrator's voice was AMAZING! Very soothing voice. I wanted to like this story because it's about homophobia and not understanding someone else's world. And how both of the son's fathers ultimately accept their sons even if they can't understand them. Of course, it's not till after they were killed that it happens. I love the premise, the gay theme, and interracial...all of that. Love it! However, the revenge and the gruesomeness was just not really my jam. It was a pretty violent book, which doesn't usually bother me, but I think the way it was done just sat weird with me. Once I got about two-thirds through the book, then the ending went pretty fast because I wanted to find out what happened to the little girl and how they were going to get out of the mess with the biker people. But yeah, lots of guns, and shooting, and killing, and blowing up people. Just a little too much for my taste.
    • 4/5
      Another solid mystery set in Virginia. This time, Cosby's main characters are two middle-aged fathers. Their sons, a married a couple, were gunned down on the street. The dads come together to solve the crime the police are taking very little interest in. These men have both been to prison--one rents a trailer and is ill, the other runs a successful landscaping business and has been careful to keep his nose clean. Until now.This novel is more violent/gory than Blacktop Wasteland or All Sinners Bleed. If this had been my first Cosby, I am not sure I would have read more. It was a bit too much for me at times. In addition to working together to solve the crime, the dads also work out their own feelings about how they responded to their sons' comings out and lives. They think alone, and they talk together. This was both interesting and moving and sort of evened out the gore for me--this added more literary flair and seriousness, IMO.Adam Lazaree-White narrates this, and he is just a fantastic narrator.
    • 4/5
      SA Cosby always writes gritty, gut wrenching novels. In this one, two ex-cons get together to avenge the murders of their sons. While admitting they weren't the best fathers to their gay sons, not acknowledging/accepting the relationship while the sons were alive, Ike (black) and Buddy Lee (white) search to bring their sons' murderer to justice. They uncover secrets of the community in some very powerful places, and involving some powerful men. You feel the desperation and the anger in the words that SA Cosby writes - always a good read!
    • 2/5
      Too many incidents where the descriptions and passages were inappropriate to the character’s upbringing and education. Two fathers-one white and one black with two sons murdered now must face their own regrets. Their sons were married; something neither father could accept. When the police consider the case closed because there were no leads, the fathers decide that they would find out who had murdered their children and wreck their revenge. Not very realistic.
    • 4/5
      A high body count revenge ensues as two ex-cons, one black and comfortably off and one white and just scraping by, seek out who the murdered their gay sons who were married and left a child. It definitely lost half-points for child endangerment. A message that love is love that has bloody fingerprints all over it is ambiguous.
    • 5/5
      Ike Randolph, a black man and Buddy Lee a white man have much in common. Each has a son who was gay, their boys were married to each other, and murdered together. When the police seem to be dragging their feet in the investigation, Ike & Buddy form an uneasy alliance to find out who killed their sons. Their vendetta leaves a trail of bodies and destruction from a motorcycle gang to a paramilitary compound. But in the end, will their brand of justice prevail? Razorblade tears is a gritty story that is hard to put down.
    • 3/5
      #unpopular opinion

      Ok don’t crucify me for not giving this 5 stars. I thought the plot and the storyline was great. Two dads playing vigilantes for their two gay sons that was murdered.
      My problem was I just couldn’t connect with how it was written. The word “said” was so overused, I had to stop reading many times because that’s all I could concentrate on.

      I still recommend you give it a go.
    • 4/5
      Buddy Lee and Ike both recognize that they were terrible fathers to their sons. Both spent time in prison. Buddy Lee is as red neck as his name. Ike, a large black man with prison tattoos went straight and created a gardening business. Their only sons marry and are murdered and so here is the crime and the story. Graphic, well written and personal growth by these two grieving fathers. Can’t put it down.
    • 3/5
      This book is the story of two men who seek revenge after their two sons (married gay men) were murdered. The first thing I have to say about this book is that it is not an easy book to read. The characters are suffering grief, anguish and despair, and everything they do is to try to assuage those feelings. This is also about two homophobic fathers trying to come to terms with their sons’ sexuality, and that is not easy to read, either. Part of me wants to give this book 4 stars because of how well it was written and how many important points this book made. But I am keeping it a three because I just can’t stand so much brutal violence. And there was a LOT of it. Those really weren’t for me. But If a bunch of graphic fight scenes don’t bother you then other than that this is a good book.
    • 4/5
      Tough to review this book.
      The writing is smoother than the authors first book, and the story was better in my opinion.
      But
      The book nearly becomes a comic book with the level of violence and absurd situations and the reader is repeatedly beaten over the head with how hard it is to be black, how ignorant and racist most white people are and yet every race and sex and gender in this book is over the top stereotyped.
      Hopefully the authors next book won’t focus on checking all of the boxes for being such a woke statement on society, and please leave the over the top action to other books that do a much better job, because the believability of this book fades exponentially the further the reader gets.
      Still it is a boon that you don’t want to put down.
    • 4/5
      When partners Derek and Ike are murdered, their fathers take matters into their own hands to investigate what happened. Neither father was accepting of their sons being gay and must deal with the fact that now it’s too late.The crime element of this book was well-done with nice twists. I thought some of the dialogue bordered on preachy, but perhaps that’s what some people who will read this book need. While I didn’t think it quite lived up to the hype when it first came out, I did enjoy reading it. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.This book deals with interracial relationships, homosexuality, racism, hate crimes, and inequality. The writing is dramatic and suspenseful. The story dates itself in real time when Ike tells Buddy Lee to do the knocking on the doors of the country as he calls MAGA country because he is white. Also, the term “woke” is mentioned by Ike. The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness that is easing into the mainstream.I appreciated the age of the two main characters. They were in a constant struggle with learning technology, words and concepts of the new generation of life. Which is somewhat me in essence. I like how the writer addresses social issues in the book and gives the cultural perspective as well as the economic environment of culture and an understanding of the LGBTQ community. Buddy Lee was my favorite character, due to his tenacity and humor. I could visualize all the characters in a movie, which has been brought by Jerry Bruckheimer’s film production team in an auction in 2021. I listened to the book in audio, narrated by Adam Lazarre-White. He delivered on the dramatic effects. Cosby delivers justice and revenge. The book also focuses on the rejection from the fathers for their sons being gay and their regrets from the past and present. Cosby weaves all this together and tells a great story of race, relations and love. This noir novel has guaranteed for me a must read of his previous books, “My Darkest Prayer,” “Blacktop Wasteland” and his soon to be released book “All the Sinners Bleed”.
    • 3/5
      Razorblade Tears is the story of a pair of ex-cons seek vengeance for the murders of their sons. S.A. Cosby does a good job of capturing the cadence and vibe of the southeastern Virginia backwater. Cosby constructs two vivid main characters, Ike and Buddy Lee, as fathers of a pair of gay lovers who have been gunned down. Was it a hate crime or something more? Though the fathers seek to avenge their gay sons, it would not be accurate to consider this a queer novel and one should not read it in that lens. This is a novel of blood and violence. The dialogue in Razorblade Tears is Tarantino-esque, featuring equal parts back-talk comedy and stone-cold brutality. Yet, the tale paints most of the secondary characters with broad, lazy stereotypical brushes, which makes some parts of the tale easy to forecast. If you are looking for a murder-thriller with some grit and get, this book will not let you down. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      Wow. S.A. Cosby is one of my favorite writers. Absolutely amazing story, realistic characters, and fabulous prose.
    • 5/5
      Cosby's story of two working-class ex-cons avenging the murder of their estranged gay sons is heartbreaking and eloquent and so very, very real. It's a story of two fathers filled with regret for everything they didn't say - and some of the things they did - while their sons were alive. It's a story of two men facing a justice system that is divided along class and racial lines, and starving for justice. It's a story of two men meeting at a grave and finding their lives are more intertwined than they realized, and storming towards a future together while learning the mistakes of their pasts. It's a story about families and generations, about the criminal justice system, about race, about sexuality, and about the abuse of power. The social tensions are the same ones we see in the news - and our communities - everyday, and Cosby has a gift for communicating both bigotry and personal growth that feels human rather than elitist. Very highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Wow, what a ride! Read this straight through today just taking some breaks to let my nerves settle down! This is definitely not for the faint hearted but it's so good! Highly recommended if you can handle brutal!
    • 5/5
      Just finishing this book, I have eyes staring off, distantly to an unknown, as I perform the slow clap of adoration.My Friends, this is easily one of my favorites of 2021 and I am pretty sure, if you read it, this will land on your favorites list, as well.
    • 2/5
      I had to force myself to get to the end. Loved the idea, but found the writing dull. "like a" appears 140x. I love a good simile, but this was ridiculous.
    • 3/5
      Very quick read. Pretty silly plot and dialogue though. Predictable and corny. If it was a movie I would never have watched it. But it is a good in-between book; as in a good book to read between more serious books when you're just looking for something that doesn't require thinking too much.
    • 5/5
      Wow - this book was raw, gritty, redemptive, and angry. I loved it. Ultimately sad, this revenge story is about two fathers, one black and one white, who team up to avenge their sons deaths. Their sons were married to each other, a fact that both of the men had a hard time stomaching while their boys were alive. But now that their sons have been brutally murdered they must come to terms with their own actions and get to the bottom of why someone would want to kill them. Ike and Buddy Lee are both rough around the edges. Both have served hard time and know their way around a guns and death. But is that what their sons would have wanted? Are they just trying to make amends for the way they treated their sons while they were alive? A book I can't stop thinking about. Fast paced and action packed.
    • 5/5
      While I would categorize this as a thriller it really is so much more. It is a very engaging read that touches on so many topics that are relevant today around race and sexuality while also taking you on a bit of a violent few weeks of redemption. I felt that it had some poignant messaging but it wasn't at all preachy. It could easily have fallen into so many stereotypical traps but it somehow stayed away and left me hopeful.
    • 5/5
      Everything in me says I should not like this novel. Two fathers, black and white, both living on the edges of life, avenge the murders of their sons, two young gay men in a same sex marriage. It is about vigilante justice, white supremacy, racism, homophobia, biker gangs, senseless violence and bigotry. Yet, I could not put the book down, could not turn the pages fast enough, and will be thinking about it for days to come.
    • 4/5
      Well written, and fun to read. And very funndy.
    • 3/5
      This turned out to be surprisingly difficult for me to rate. There was a great deal I loved about the book, and a great deal I did not love at all. I suspect some of what bugged me is endemic to the genre. I generally do not read thrillers and have limited patience with tortured heroes (with the exceptions of Armand Gamache and Jackson Brodie) and with vigilante justice. So with that as a lead in...I started out loving the book. The setup is great. Two fathers, one black one white, both of whom have criminal pasts, set out to avenge the brutal murders of their sons. The sons were married, and both fathers had rejected their respective sons because they were gay. I do not think it is any way a spoiler to say the fathers are racked with guilt about rejecting their sons and they set out on their mission as a way to ameliorate their guilt and thereby make them feel better about themselves.The fathers, Ike and Buddy Lee are great characters. It is rollicking fun to ride shotgun while they go all John McClane on everyone. The discussions between the two were, for me, by far the best part of the book. Both are complex and smart (in their own ways) and filled to the brim with regret not just for not supporting their sons but also not being the husbands and fathers they should have been and for valuing their loved ones less than their gangs (that word is never used, I think they always say "cliques", which makes me think of Regina George rather than a group of people who require that you kill people and protect you against pissed off members of the local Bloods chapter.)So Ike and Buddy Lee are intriguing complex characters, but no one else is complex at all. This is one of the things I suspect is endemic to the genre, there is a comic noir feel to the evildoers here. The words they use, the things they do. In my experience most people who commit evil acts are pretty complex themselves but not these guys. They hate children and animals, they have unresolved daddy issues, they devalue women, and they spend an inordinate amount of time talking trash about LGBTQ+ and black people and clinging to their religion and their guns. In other words, they are caricatures. This would have been a much better book if they were fleshed out as well. Even if Cosby was going for the comic book villain thing he could have given us a meaningful backstory. Lex Luther, the Joker, these guys are at least as interesting as their superhero nemeses. Also, I cannot imagine anyone reading this did not know the true identity of the Snidely Whiplash-like bad guy behind the marauding murderous biker gang from the first time he uttered a word. Like I said, this is not my genre so I would have been slower on picking up cues than people who reads a lot of these books, and I knew before he completed his first sentence. Also obvious is Tangerine's secret; we know her truth from the first time the dads find out that this super fine woman spends her leisure time in a gay bar. Similarly thin were the characterizations of the dead sons - portrayed as flavorless saints. Responsible mortgage-holders, well-educated, married and breeding at the age of 25. (They are 27 when killed, and have a 2-year old.)Perhaps my biggest issue with the book was the deluge of afterschool special level LGBTQ+ people, they are just like us! moments. These are so ham-fisted, it is embarrassing to read them. And also, the speed with which these two bigots become LGBTQ+ allies after their sons' deaths is absurd. All the sudden these guys are loud and proud - I kept thinking of the father in Heathers "I Love My Gay Son! It was so inauthentic it felt parodic, and it should not have been (and also clearly was not intended to be so.) There were some educational moments about racism, but they were much better handled (though when Buddy Lee, a redneck with an 8th grade education, acknowledges his white privilege in those exact words I rolled my eyes HARD.) Also worth mentioning, and I know this is something that bugs me more than others, is the endless stream of similes and metaphors. Southern people outside of movies and Hee Haw episodes do not talk in similes. Side note, even when they use true southern expressions the characters get them wrong. For example, Buddy Lee says he is going to be as careful as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and that is not even the expression -- it is that someone is as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. One guy gets his head blown off and someone says it looks like his head is being eaten by his own plasma, but plasma is yellow and would look nothing like a blood soaked head. Some of the similes are just super tortured. One guy gets shot and his intestines are described as looking like taffy soaked in merlot. Really?For all that, Ike and Buddy Lee kept me pretty entertained, and this is going to make a kick-ass movie. I have already cast Forest Whitaker as Ike and Gary Oldman or Billy Bob Thornton as Buddy Lee. Worth a read if you like a little dynamic duo action.

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    Razorblade Tears - S. A. Cosby

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