Evil is rarely complicated. It’s just effin’ bold. This is just one of countless hard-hitting lines that stuck with me from S.A Cosby’s latest elegant amalgamation of poetic beauty and visceral cruelty which gives birth to a thriller that stirred my heart and rumbled my stomach with both anticipation and dread of reaching the last page of the book. All The Sinners Bleed is a southern noir thriller that only a prodigy like Cosby could have dreamt up and poured onto the pages with a lyrical tune to the memorable dialogues and somber moments.
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff of Charon County in Virginia, a place reveling in racial tensions spurned by a dark history that continues to haunt the residents centuries later. Having been elected against all odds, Titus fights to be an exemplary champion of the law for the residents of his hometown, especially those who are easy targets to racial prejudice as we see sadly much too often in news today. On what seems to start off as a quiet day, Titus spurs into action when an active shooter situation is reported at the local school. Shaken by the vengeful shooting, he starts to dig deeper into the crime, unearthing a disturbing secret about the town that it just doesn’t want spilled. Titus isn’t just fighting the evil in the world today, but he’s fighting all the evil that has seeped into the foundations of the town from long, long ago.
I don’t think I could have been more excited for the book, and yet I wasn’t prepared in the slightest for just how addictive this thriller would be. Cosby gives life to everything he writes; every character, every home, every dingy corner, it all blooms with his descriptive and impactful words that effortlessly play the scenes in your head as you’re reading through the pages. A huge reason for that is Cosby’s willingness to address the world as it is today. The dilemmas Titus faces feel magnificently rooted in our imperfect world, from grand socioeconomic concerns to much more personal demons that give you pause when you consider that they exist in a character we’re relentlessly rooting for. This slight hesitation pulls up a range of philosophical questions that you ask yourself as you read through the book, some of them even being answered with time in the narrative and some with your own reflections. It’s the immersion of readers into the narrative so strongly that Cosby nails so exquisitely.
Anyone not a stranger to Cosby’s work won’t be surprised to know this isn’t just a dark narrative, but it’s his darkest yet. Unforgiving in its brutality and unapologetic in the small glimpses of beauty of life amidst its ugliness, All The Sinners Bleed has a cinematically somber tone, akin to the True Detective series on HBO. The developments sneak up on you and the twists shock you with the combined jolts of electric watts and ice-cold water. I sincerely hope we haven’t read the last of Titus Crown. This is a protagonist who speaks to you on a deep and intimate level with all his flaws out in the open for you to not just read but also relate to in the hours when the night is the darkest. This may very well be THE BOOK of 2023!
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