When the king of Southern noir<\/a>, S.A. Cosby, sent out his debut novel, \u201cMy Darkest Prayer,\u201d it was rejected again and again. \u201cOne of the editors said, \u2018I just don\u2019t believe this level of violence and intensity exists in rural areas,\u2019\u201d Cosby tells me with a laugh. \u201cI was like, I grew up here. If you live in a rural area and it\u2019s a Friday, Saturday night, there\u2019s not a lot to do but drink and fight and ride around.\u201d He admits he\u2019s exaggerating to some extent. \u201cBut Raymond Chandler is exaggerating. Robert Cray is exaggerating. These great writers,\u201d Cosby says. \u201cA novel is not supposed to be a documentary.\u201d<\/p>\n His latest, \u201cKing of Ashes,\u201d<\/a> is riveting and terrifying, and continues to receive wide acclaim. Cosby\u2019s work has topped bestseller lists and been praised by former President Obama. The author\u2019s distinctive storytelling is rooted in his background. He was born poor in rural Virginia. His family lived in a mobile home. <\/p>\n \u201cI grew up loving stories, but didn\u2019t have a lot of money,\u201d he told me. \u201cDidn\u2019t have indoor plumbing until I was 15.\u201d <\/p>\n We spoke via Zoom, with a spotty connection because he still lives in rural Virginia. When he was young, Cosby\u2019s parents separated, and his mother, who had health issues, struggled. Cosby started college but dropped out to move home and take care of her.<\/p>\n He wanted to be a writer, but was working full-time as an associate manager at a big-box hardware store. He grabbed whatever time he could. \u201cI wrote on my lunch break,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote late at night because when I was working, I was also a primary caregiver for my mother.\u201d After his mother died \u2014 a loss reflected in his fiction \u2014 he moved in with his now-wife and was on call to help with her funeral home. Through it all, he kept writing, eventually gaining traction and support from the online magazine Thuglit<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Flatiron \/ Pine & Cedar)<\/p>\n Cosby has since published five novels (plus a sci-fi series for kids<\/a> co-written with Questlove<\/a>). He won an L.A. Times mystery\/thriller books prize in 2020 for his gripping noir \u201cBlacktop Wasteland,\u201d and this year he is up for the same award for his brilliantly plotted thriller \u201cKing of Ashes.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n In it, eldest brother Roman leaves his high-end financial management business in Atlanta to return home after his father is badly injured in an accident. There, his sister Neveah has been keeping the family crematorium business going. Their little brother Dante is an irresponsible party boy, tangled up with a ruthless local gang. The book is strewn with bloody corpses.<\/p>\n \u201cKing of Ashes\u201d is so high stakes that it\u2019s good they have a place to burn bodies. Roman takes charge to fix things, but the more power he wields, the darker his life becomes. It has elements of a classic tragedy, where characters\u2019 lives are destined to intersect badly. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was writing, I was thinking about the weight of secrets, the weight of pain, and how what we hold onto can hold us down,\u201d Cosby says. \u201cFor me, the heart of the book is the siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n As a writer he\u2019s more inclined to stretch out than double-down. His novels can be slotted into some mystery\/thriller subcategories \u2014 \u201cBlacktop Wasteland\u201d is a heist novel, \u201cRazorblade Tears\u201d a revenge thriller, \u201cAll the Sinners Bleed\u201d a police procedural.<\/p>\n What they have in common is the setting, southeastern Virginia. \u201cI like being able to tie my characters back into this place that exists,\u201d Cosby said. It\u2019s a combination of his hometown and the neighboring counties. \u201cI like the stability that that creates. I wanted you to feel grounded, like this place has history. This place has legend and myth and lore.\u201d If an editor long ago thought there wasn\u2019t enough going on there, he was overlooking William Faulkner\u2019s Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a fictional place with boundless stories.<\/p>\n What is rural noir, exactly? Cosby defined it to me as \u201cbooks that took noir existentialism out the cities and the back and brought it down into the hills and the hollers, the low country.\u201d He related something crime writer James D.F. Hannah once said: \u201cI know a dark alley is scary. But I\u2019ll tell you, there\u2019s no scarier place than a country road at night when the sky\u2019s gone full dark and no stars.\u201d<\/p>\n In \u201cKing of Ashes,\u201d danger often waits where the streetlights at the county line end. But his next book will combine the two \u2014 in addition to the familiar Virginia setting, the action will go cross-country and reach Los Angeles. Apart from a few cameos and crossovers \u2014 \u201cthe S.A. Cosby Shared Universe,\u201d he jokes \u2014 Cosby writes stand-alone novels. For mystery writers, who often write quickly for people who like to read quickly, doing stand-alones might be considered a disadvantage. Novels in series often come out once a year, are addictive, have characters people love. Think of Michael Connelly \u2014 he\u2019s Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer<\/a>, Mickey Haller \u2014 who each will have another book coming soon.<\/p>\n But Cosby\u2019s singular narratives haven\u2019t gone unnoticed by Hollywood. Earlier this year, Netflix announced that it will adapt Cosby\u2019s \u201cAll the Sinners Bleed\u201d<\/a> into a limited series, to star \u1e62\u1ecdp\u1eb9\u0301 D\u00ecr\u00eds\u00f9 as the novel\u2019s small town black sheriff dealing with a serial killer. It will include a guest appearance by new Oscar winner Amy Madigan. It\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n \u2018All the Sinners Bleed,\u2019 by S.A. Cosby<\/p>\n (Flatiron Books)<\/p>\n The television adaptation of \u201cAll the Sinners Bleed\u201d is being executive produced by Higher Ground Productions<\/a>, with Amblin Television. Higher Ground is Barack and Michelle Obama\u2019s production company. Obama has twice included Cosby\u2019s novels on his summer reading list<\/a>. Cosby says he hasn\u2019t met the former first couple yet, but he did speak to the former president on the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so surreal, not just that he\u2019s the president, not just that he\u2019s a cultural touchstone as the first Black president, but that I\u2019m talking to him, this little poor kid from Virginia,\u201d Cosby said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first started writing, all I wanted was for somebody other than my mother or my brother to like my books,\u201d Cosby said. \u201cI wanted people who didn\u2019t have to like it to like it.\u201d Now he\u2019s been on the phone with former President Obama and talked with him about his work. He\u2019s keeping that private \u2014 except for one part of the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018I think you\u2019re a great American novelist.\u2019 And he didn\u2019t caveat it with \u2018crime novelist\u2019 or genre. He just said, \u2018I think you\u2019re a great American novelist.\u2019 And gosh, that\u2019s one of the highest compliments you could get.\u201d<\/p>\n S.A. Cosby will be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books April 18 and 19. <\/p>\n (Rob Ostermaier \/ Consociate Media)<\/p>\n Recent S.A. Cosby faves:<\/p>\n Movie: \u201cBlue Ruin\u201d<\/a> by Jeremy Saulnier. That\u2019s an amazing movie. Somebody recommended it to me \u2018cause it takes place in Virginia. I was kind of hesitant, but this was set in Virginia and shot in Virginia, and it is a wonderfully dark rural noir.<\/p>\n Music: I love the Black Pumas<\/a>. I just discovered them about a year ago. It\u2019s Southern twang, but also with this heavy sort of influence of R&B and soul and rock.<\/p>\n Podcast: I listen to \u201cLast Podcast on the Left\u201d<\/a> a lot. I listen to \u201cTrue Crime Garage<\/a>.\u201d There\u2019s a sci-fi podcast called \u201cWolf 359<\/a>,\u201d about a crew of a space station circling a red dwarf star. It\u2019s very funny. I love sci-fi.<\/p>\n Science-fiction franchise: I am a \u201cStar Wars\u201d nerd from way back. The Expanded Universe novels, and I\u2019ve seen the \u201cStar Wars\u201d Christmas special in all its glory. I haven\u2019t been as much a part of the fandom as I used to be, because there\u2019s been some issues. I think Darth Vader\u2019s a great villain. I love the ethos of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d Anything \u201cStar Wars\u201d-related, I\u2019m going to watch it and think it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZES & FESTIVAL INFO<\/a> <\/p>\n Book prizes:<\/a> <\/p>\n S.A. Cosby is a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize in mystery\/thriller<\/p>\n Book festival:<\/a> <\/p>\n Appears Sat. April 18 at 3 p.m. at Norris Theater on the panel \u201cIt Goes All the Way to the Top\u201d with Ace Atkins, Lou Berney and Luke Goebel<\/a>. Tickets required<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sun. April 19 at 12:30 p.m.: S.A. Cosby will appear on the Audiobook & Spotify Stage. Free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the Shelf King of Ashes By S.A. Cosby Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar: 352 pages, $29 If…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[57862,24264,6193,83995,117612,664,48,52,51,47,50,49,6316,33587,4759,1410,117611,117610,2850,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-270624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ashe","9":"tag-book","10":"tag-character","11":"tag-debut-novel","12":"tag-great-writer","13":"tag-king","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-mother","21":"tag-mystery","22":"tag-obama","23":"tag-place","24":"tag-rural-virginia","25":"tag-s-a-cosby","26":"tag-star","27":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""King](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776339430_397_.jpeg\")
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