Blacktop Wasteland cover art

Blacktop Wasteland

the acclaimed and award-winning crime hit of the year

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Blacktop Wasteland

By: S. A. Cosby
Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

It's a crime that history repeats itself.

Beauregard 'Bug' Montage: honest mechanic, loving husband, devoted parent. He's no longer the criminal he once was - the sharpest wheelman on the east coast, infamous from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida.

But when his respectable life begins to crumble, a shady associate comes calling with a clean, one-time job: a diamond heist promising a get-rich payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver's seat - and haunted by the ghost of his outlaw father - Bug is yanked back into a savage world of bullets and betrayal, which soon endangers all he holds dear.

Like Breaking Bad in a high-speed collision with Drive, this stunning debut holds up a cracked mirror to the woozy ideals of the American dream - a dazzling, operatic story of a man pushed to his limits by poverty, race and a scarred, self-destructive masculinity.

The perfect gripping listen for fans of acclaimed writers such as Don Winslow, Attica Locke, Bill Beverley and Thomas Mullen.

©2020 Shawn A. Cosby (P)2020 Headline Publishing Group Ltd Crime Crime Fiction Crime Thrillers Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Haunted Exciting Suspense

Listeners also enjoyed...

 California Fire and Life cover art
Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? cover art
The Cold, Cold Ground cover art
Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh cover art
Gangland cover art
The List cover art
Cash City cover art
The Ranger cover art
Midnight Rider cover art
Skin of Tattoos cover art
Truck Stop cover art
Distant Sons cover art
The Life We Bury cover art
When Christmas Comes cover art
The Terminal List cover art
Rovers cover art

Critic reviews

"Sensationally good - new, fresh, real, authentic, twisty, with characters and dilemmas that will break your heart." (Lee Child)

"Every once in a while a writer comes along with an incredible voice. Think Elmore Leonard, or Chester Himes...add S. A. Cosby to that list." (Steve Cavanagh)

"Blacktop Wasteland is an urgent, timely, pitch-perfect jolt of American noir." (Dennis Lehane)

All stars
Most relevant  
a brilliant story which was a slow burner with the characters imprinted in my mind forever

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I absolutely loved this book.
What in the outside is a fun thriller car chase heist is actually a book with a huge amount of depth, soul and internal journeys. Race generational trauma. A deeply important conversation about what it means to be a man and a father.
The narrator bring it to life perfectly. Recommend

Such a rich textural world

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved this book from beginning to end. S.A Cosby brings this slice of southern life vividly to life with characters you will believe in. One of the best books I have read this year and the narration is first class. I highly recommend it.

Brilliant, nailbiting Southern Noir

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So much of the best crime writing comes from the US. This heist tale is excellent, combining action, violence and criminality with real life moral dilemmas.

The characters are drawn vividly, are cliche free and the dialogue sizzles. Highly recommended.

Great crime thriller set in southern States

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beauregard “Bug” Montage is known in some circles as the best getaway driver for miles around. He is now retired and leading a good life and trying to provide for his family. But events beyond his control have caused him some serious financial losses.

Just “one last job” would see him right. A jewellery store is ripe for the picking and all Bug has to do is drive the car. So the gang sets off, they hold up the store and take the diamonds. Everything goes to plan and they escape without a hitch. So Bug is able to pay off his debts and return to an honest living. NO!! Of course, this is not what happened. Bug carried out his part of the deal but greed and stupidity gets in the way of his companions. The repercussions are enormous and threaten the very people he has hoped to protect.

This was a compelling story – fast and furious – and one of m best crime thrillers of the year. The plot device of “one last heist” is far from new but Cosby writes with urgency and originality and we are cheering Bug along until the end. A terrific read.

This worked well as an audiobook - although I thought the reader was a little ponderous and slow.

A terrific read.....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
<i>"You start down a road like this and before you know it you can't find your way back. You lose yourself."</i>

BLACKTOP WASTELAND is simply stunning, a dark, fast-moving, thrill-ride; funny and heart-breaking. At its centre is Beauregard 'Bug' Montage, a road racer, a mechanic, a former getaway driver, a tragic anti-hero of Shakespearian proportions, a black man whose struggle to provide for the family he clearly loves draws him back for one last big score. S.A. Cosby has delivered a story that echoes classic 1970s movies, The Driver and The Friends of Eddie Coyle spring to mind, as well as Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford, and more recently, Jordan Harper and Bill Beverly.

The book is full of deeply flawed and well-rounded characters, dialogue that rings true, and the best written car chases I have ever read, you can hear the engines screaming and smell the rubber burning. One of the best novels I have read this year and destined to be a classic.

The narration is excellent and really brings the characters to life.

Excellent story, excellent narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Brilliantly imaginative author who can't help but write masterpieces, highly recommended to anyone who's a fan of the genre. A novel worth savouring

Wonderful book once again

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great southern noir!!! Great characters in this perfect little heist story! Narrated perfectly. Good story of a man being pulled back into a life of crime he thought he’d left behind him.

Don’t do heists with HillBillys!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is one of the best books I have read/listened to in a long time. Absolutely gripping from start to finish.

Brilliant Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
After hearing this author speak at the Locked Up Festival then seeing recommendations from several authors, I was really looking forward to this book.
It is essentially the old story of an ex-bad guy trying really hard to turn his life around, but being dragged into 'one last job', and we all know how that usually goes!
This is a great story with some action sequences, specifically the car chases, that are so well written that they deserve to be on screen. There is a whole cast of well-written, believable characters, especially the lead character Beauregard 'Bug' Montage. You can't help but root for him and understand almost every action he takes.
Well worth a listen.

Blacktop Wasteland

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews