S.A. Cosby continues to impress as one of the "most consistently amazing authors" out there with his 2025 release - King of Ashes. #Everythingburns
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00:00:17
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:20
And welcome back to this week's No Limits.
00:00:22
So through their podcast, How You Doing tonight, Mike A.
00:00:27
Little tired, been busy. We've been reading, but excited
00:00:32
to get on here tonight and talk about.
00:00:34
It's one of the most consistently amazing authors out
00:00:38
there. Shawn Cosby.
00:00:41
Dude, I haven't been this excited to talk to you about a
00:00:45
book in a while. And not that I'm not excited
00:00:48
every time we do like one of our our standard series, but I kind
00:00:52
of know like how that conversation is going to go like
00:00:55
for the most part, because, you know, generally they, they kind
00:00:59
of all sit within a vibe, But this one man, and he's just
00:01:03
crushing it. It makes me, I never actually
00:01:04
read razor blade tears. It makes me really want to go
00:01:08
read that as well as his My Darkest Prayer, the other book
00:01:11
we haven't like talked about. I don't even know if you've read
00:01:13
that, have you? Right.
00:01:14
No, I haven't. And I know it's one of his
00:01:16
earlier ones. I'd really like to go back to
00:01:18
that. Yeah, they went ahead and
00:01:19
republished it in 2022 when I think he got, you know, big off
00:01:24
of the 1st 2:00. But obviously, you know, we
00:01:26
covered on this back was that on Mitch rap pod?
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We we covered, we interviewed him very gracious during COVID
00:01:36
covered black top wasteland. Oh yeah.
00:01:39
He's that way. He's.
00:01:40
Gotten a lot busier. We, we can, you know, he's, he's
00:01:43
one of the ones we, we would love to talk to you again.
00:01:46
But in the meantime, we'll have a great time talking about his
00:01:49
book 'cause I, I Can't Sing the highest praises for this book.
00:01:54
Go out, buy the copy, or do yourself one better listen to
00:02:00
the audiobook. Because the same guy, the same
00:02:02
guy. Adam was our white.
00:02:04
Adam was our. White, unbelievable narrator.
00:02:08
He's done all of the books. He has and and you know, that's
00:02:11
a that's a little issue because sometimes I kept thinking Titus
00:02:14
in my head or a little bit and like Adam's so good at
00:02:17
differentiating the characters within a book.
00:02:20
But now that we've had four different books with him and all
00:02:23
the characters are different, you know, it's not a universe.
00:02:26
Sean doesn't write well, he does write in a universe because
00:02:29
there's so much of his style that is real.
00:02:31
I feel like he writes in our universe, the existence S, you
00:02:34
know, the, the North Carolina, Virginia, Mid-Atlantic.
00:02:39
And so that universe exists because our universe exists.
00:02:42
And he's such a realist. But all these books are separate
00:02:45
plots, separate stories. They don't have to do with one
00:02:47
another. Yet the voices sometimes sound
00:02:49
very similar book to book. He's so good as a narrator, he
00:02:53
doesn't do that within book. But now that you've kept it up
00:02:56
book to book, I kept thinking Titus in my head every time
00:02:58
we're with Roman, totally different characters, but you
00:03:01
know, just something about the voices rang the same.
00:03:03
Same with women. His his women are very good and
00:03:06
differentiated within a book, but you start to hear some of
00:03:08
the same voices as different women come up.
00:03:11
Yeah, and I I noticed that too. I kept on Titus.
00:03:14
Is the the police captain right or the?
00:03:16
In all the centers. All the centers, yeah.
00:03:19
Speaking of that, they're going to make that into a series,
00:03:22
television Series, A movie, something like that.
00:03:24
Dude, yeah, I, I don't know all the details of it, but if
00:03:29
there's one thing I don't want to watch a show about, it's the
00:03:32
subject of that book just because it's so heavy.
00:03:35
Like, it'll be an amazing plot. It's made for TV.
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Netflix. Just Netflix got it.
00:03:40
OK, The emotional investment. I think that's kind of why I
00:03:43
enjoyed reading this one. The stakes are really high for
00:03:47
the characters. The emotional investment within
00:03:50
their family dynamics is huge. But for some reason it weighed a
00:03:54
little less on me. I remember all the sinners bleed
00:03:57
sat with me. It impacted me.
00:03:59
I was like whoa, this is world shattering.
00:04:02
And this one I was able to to get through a little bit more
00:04:04
easily, although I don't feel the characters within it got
00:04:07
through all that easily. Yeah, it's it's it's much more
00:04:12
of a a darker ending, you know, and very much so the you know,
00:04:17
this book reminds me of The Wire.
00:04:21
It reminds me of Ozark, it reminds me of Narcos.
00:04:25
It you know, all of these great TV shows or, or, you know,
00:04:31
Breaking Bad where you have someone who is thrust into this
00:04:36
universe and then it is subsumed by it, you know, a quote UN
00:04:41
quote innocent person, right. So someone who's, you know, made
00:04:44
it out and and is fine, but then gets dragged in and for him to
00:04:50
like do his version because, you know, The Wire very, very much
00:04:53
so it does depict a very realistic, you know, life as a
00:04:58
gangster in Baltimore. But ultimately that show was
00:05:02
written by a white man and, you know, who lived from Baltimore,
00:05:05
They had lived in Baltimore. David Simon, like, did a very
00:05:07
good job of that. And each season kind of like
00:05:09
looks from different angles, the police, the school, stuff like
00:05:13
that. But this one being written by a
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black man being written by someone who grew up in this, you
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know, maybe a town or or, you know, knew of people that lived
00:05:24
in a town like this and just bring so much realism to it.
00:05:29
And to do his version of Ozark. And I kept on thinking like he
00:05:31
was he's Marty from, you know, like Jason Bateman's character
00:05:36
in Ozark. Essentially it's, you know, the
00:05:38
guy who gets actually roped in and then he he's having to
00:05:42
constantly make, you know, judgement calls and he even says
00:05:48
it right. Roman even says at one point,
00:05:51
like everything is a decision. Like, and it's it's what you
00:05:55
decide in that moment. It's not regret.
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You know, it's not like karma, It's not any of that.
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It's like everything, the decision.
00:06:00
Ultimately it's him and his family versus everyone else.
00:06:05
But you can see towards the very end he becomes what he says like
00:06:11
at one point, right? He's like, I am not this I he
00:06:13
repeats it like 7 times. But he he ultimately becomes
00:06:16
that. Once you get that deep, he
00:06:17
becomes the king of ashes. Yes.
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Yeah, what is it the the hero's only hero.
00:06:23
So unless it lives too long to become the villain, what's
00:06:26
what's the whole the spider man Superman, whichever one that's
00:06:30
from. But he he does he become the
00:06:33
villain, he that that ending. Well, First off, there's so much
00:06:37
about the final like 1/4 of this book that is explosive within
00:06:44
the family of those scenes. The twists are out of control
00:06:48
and and twist upon twist. You you could have the actual
00:06:51
action twist of the showdown in the warehouse where the police
00:06:55
guy turns on him and he and he's in in bed with the brothers.
00:06:59
But you can equally have and then he turns the tables on him,
00:07:03
right? It's Austin Powers, you know, he
00:07:06
turns the table on him because he has the guys on the inside
00:07:09
that he's been paying off and he's been bribing to go against
00:07:11
their boss. He becomes the boss, you know,
00:07:14
by going against the boss. Yeah.
00:07:16
Oh, man, all those shows, Ozark, The Wire, Godfather vibes, even
00:07:21
with and then the the theme of family.
00:07:23
I mean, that's true in all of these crime drama stories and
00:07:27
really a lot of gangster stories is the lengths you go to for
00:07:30
your family. But what's interesting is we
00:07:32
open with him as a financial advisor, kind of a bigwig.
00:07:36
I'm like, he's with these rappers, He's successful people.
00:07:40
He's living in Georgia. And I was like, Atlanta.
00:07:43
I know Sean Love. We talked to him all about, you
00:07:46
know, Southern Virginia and his ideas of the South.
00:07:48
I'm like, interesting, we're going to a big city in Georgia a
00:07:52
little outside of his wheelhouse.
00:07:53
And then Nope, quickly, we're tied into Jefferson Run and
00:07:56
we're taken there and I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, this is Sean
00:07:59
Cosby being himself, pulling on his roots and knowing.
00:08:02
Exactly. You know, the the types of
00:08:04
characters in these types of places, the dynamics.
00:08:07
Everybody knows each other's business.
00:08:09
Everybody knows each other's family history.
00:08:11
Something about the mom, you know, disappearing becomes lore
00:08:14
like for decades that everyone in town knows about.
00:08:19
A bar fight is not just, you know, an unnamed couple of drunk
00:08:21
college kids. You know, a bar fight is like
00:08:24
you're doing something with your family name in public.
00:08:27
It's almost like the town square, right where everyone
00:08:30
sees what you're doing and it reflects on your family and then
00:08:33
it just that setting is awesome. But but the twist all this leads
00:08:37
me to see another big twist is how this family goes through
00:08:41
everything and really falls apart like the twist.
00:08:45
Loses everything. They lose everything and Oh my
00:08:49
God, it's so subtle too. Like Nivea was that her name?
00:08:53
She the sister, she killed the dad.
00:08:56
Like she was the one who gave him the aspirin.
00:09:00
And she's like, it's too late now.
00:09:02
And. I did it.
00:09:03
I did it for nothing like. I did it for nothing, right?
00:09:06
And then the twist, just finding out Roman killed her.
00:09:09
That flashback. That flashback dropped like a
00:09:12
bomb when you find out the scene about him accidentally killing
00:09:15
his mom. I know because he's slowly
00:09:17
building up to that, right with it's multiple like little
00:09:20
flashback scenes. You know, we're jumping back to
00:09:23
that day, you know, and you knew that ultimately that's how
00:09:27
you're going to find out how, how she died, what really
00:09:31
happened. Disappeared.
00:09:32
Yeah. Disappeared.
00:09:34
You know, I, I did not see that coming.
00:09:37
I did not see it being in a freak accident.
00:09:40
Right. Like, not, not that Roman.
00:09:41
Like it would have been too much if like, Roman had like, beaten
00:09:44
her. Sure, but it was a fight.
00:09:47
Like, yes, it's an accident. Oh yeah, yeah, He finally says
00:09:49
that out loud. But emotions were high, you
00:09:53
know? Like there was tension.
00:09:54
And she did cheat, you know, and, and the, the teenage
00:09:57
brother saw the cheating. And so like this family was
00:10:01
busting at the seams and and it just so happened that at this
00:10:04
moment, this tragic thing takes place.
00:10:08
Yeah, and then the the dad did what?
00:10:10
And ultimately, you realize why he has such compassion for his
00:10:13
dad, why he would do anything for his dad because he realized
00:10:18
that no matter what they said to the cops, you know, one of them,
00:10:23
we're going to go to to jail. Most likely to.
00:10:26
Lose everything and they did what they had to do.
00:10:31
Lose the business. Yeah, so and then like, that
00:10:34
gets dropped on you like a bomb. And then you're just like, why
00:10:37
don't you just tell your sister, Tell your sister like she's
00:10:39
she's going down this whole path, hating her father, hating
00:10:43
her life, you know, essentially, like all of her relationships,
00:10:47
her life has been messed up because of this event, you know,
00:10:50
hating her father. And she's holding everything
00:10:53
together. She's doing all the hard work.
00:10:55
And ultimately at the end, she leaves the business, leaves
00:10:58
everything I know with nothing so.
00:11:01
She's the hardest working one of all of them.
00:11:05
In the end, Roman quote UN quote wins.
00:11:07
He is the king of ashes. He is, but at what cost?
00:11:11
In order to do that he everything had to burn down.
00:11:13
And they said at the end everything burns.
00:11:16
He lost his brother, he lost his father, lost his mother, lost
00:11:22
his sister essentially. And now he's wrapped up in this
00:11:27
game where he had a quote UN quote legitimate business.
00:11:31
You know, like obviously he brought to the game some more
00:11:35
nefarious aspects of how you make money in the white collar
00:11:40
world. But you know, now he there was
00:11:44
this very subtle turn at the end where in a you kind of mention
00:11:50
it like, Oh yeah, he's he's just like the what were their names?
00:11:54
I know there was a tranquil. Torrent tranquil and torrent
00:11:57
what? Was their last name.
00:11:58
I keep forgetting Carruthers. No, he's the Carruthers.
00:12:01
Oh yeah, they're the Carruthers. Oh, Oh yeah, it's not.
00:12:06
Going to come. Yeah, that's right.
00:12:07
Anyways. Keith Carruthers.
00:12:08
Roman Carruthers. Anyways.
00:12:09
Tranquil are phenomenal villains.
00:12:13
Yes, very much so. But like what?
00:12:17
Oh, so anyways, what I was saying is that, you know, he
00:12:22
quote UN quote wins, but he had to you were you you were saying
00:12:29
that it's different, but it's not because you can see this
00:12:32
very subtle shift at the end where I don't know if it's
00:12:36
Doughboy or one of the other guys like ask some questions and
00:12:39
he he turns and he he pulls a line that I'm pretty sure
00:12:44
Torrance said to him earlier in the game.
00:12:46
You're asking too many questions like what I say, it doesn't
00:12:50
matter what like what I say goes and that I'm almost positive it
00:12:55
was a a word for word quote for something that he heard from
00:12:59
torn. And.
00:13:02
It's like this building of all right, yeah, he's, you know,
00:13:06
maybe he's he's having the boys. They're not going to be running
00:13:08
and gunning to the neighborhood that, you know, little less
00:13:11
collateral. You know, they're going to be
00:13:13
doing some making their money in different ways.
00:13:17
But ultimately he, he likes it. He likes he, he likes that
00:13:22
money. And there was this great quote
00:13:24
that it stuck with me. And then it was funny because I
00:13:28
was reading some of the reviews and, and one of the reviews
00:13:31
quoted this quote and I was like, yes, that's I, I got to
00:13:33
share this. So it's like money is like acid.
00:13:36
It burns everything. Friendships, families, lovers,
00:13:39
husbands, wives is, is very true.
00:13:42
That's ultimately what happened, right?
00:13:44
It's all about the money. He was good at it.
00:13:46
He liked it. He realized that he never.
00:13:50
Yeah, he could have kept on working for who he was working,
00:13:52
you know, whether a year, whether it was his own company
00:13:56
or I, I forget, it was his own company or like he worked as it,
00:13:58
like he was the main partner at this company.
00:14:02
But something about this just it's that primal.
00:14:07
The thrill of the hunt. Yeah, yeah.
00:14:10
Which makes me think every time he's telling Dante like you're
00:14:13
the screw up. I'm doing this because of you.
00:14:15
I got to save your ass and he's you know, it's.
00:14:18
All a lot with it's excuses. But he's back up with letter
00:14:21
family values, right? I'd go to the ends of the earth
00:14:23
for my brother. I think there's a seed inside of
00:14:27
him that is growing that he wants this power and wrapped up
00:14:31
with like the finances. He knows he's good at it.
00:14:34
And I you see that come to fruition.
00:14:38
That final scene where he's silhouetted as jealousy sneaks
00:14:41
around the back of the warehouse and looks in and she sees the
00:14:45
fires burning with him as a silhouette and even mentions,
00:14:48
you know, reminds her of her of a painting she likes about the
00:14:52
fall of the devil. He'd rather rain in hell than be
00:14:55
a servant in the Kingdom of heaven.
00:14:56
It's like, is that what Roman is becoming?
00:15:00
And not to mention all the Roman the name and all the Ancient
00:15:04
Rome references for particularly with him and dude.
00:15:08
Khalil, you need. Yourself a Khalil, everyone
00:15:11
needs. Everyone needs a Khalil.
00:15:12
Or does Khalil just just get him going deeper into it?
00:15:16
You know, like the fact that he's got Khalil as his boy, as
00:15:19
his backup, does that keep him in the game where if he didn't
00:15:23
have that crutch, he maybe wouldn't have let this inner
00:15:27
demon grow? Like, is Khalil complicit?
00:15:31
Obviously he's complicit in the act, Like he commits the crimes,
00:15:33
he takes the shots at times. But is he also complicit in
00:15:37
Roman's downfall? I yeah, A a little.
00:15:42
Bit but you know, ultimately he he let it happen.
00:15:49
You know, you know, Khalil reminds me of a lot.
00:15:51
Is the character Mike from Breaking Bad like Jimmy's?
00:15:56
Did you watch Breaking Bad? You're not going to want to hear
00:15:58
this, but. No, don't tell me that.
00:16:00
I watched the pilot and I couldn't get through it.
00:16:03
What I I couldn't. I know.
00:16:05
And everyone's like best show ever made.
00:16:08
I got to pick it up again. I couldn't get through.
00:16:10
I think I tried a second episode and I couldn't.
00:16:12
I couldn't. I will say the first season, the
00:16:15
first couple episodes are like probably the hardest to get
00:16:20
through, but then once you watch the first season, 'cause then
00:16:24
you'll be you'll be hooked. No, dude, you alright anyways?
00:16:27
I know, I know, but. There's there's a character.
00:16:29
Like that's on me. That's.
00:16:30
On Khalil for my Breaking Bad fans out there like a Mike who
00:16:36
you know, I made their living as these, you know, fixer like a
00:16:40
Ray Ray Donovan type. I mean Roman is is in a sense
00:16:45
kind of a fixer. He's a money fixer.
00:16:47
He he makes rich people's problems going away.
00:16:50
He's a Michael Clayton type, but.
00:16:55
Are those guys loyal to the core?
00:16:57
Like as loyal as Khalil and those other stories.
00:17:00
See, that's, see the Khalil's Khalil is a loose cannon, right?
00:17:03
You got to keep sure. You have to make sure that
00:17:07
'cause I think he, like he's the only one that could potentially
00:17:09
take Roman down. No one else could take like take
00:17:12
Roman down. That's a good point if Khalil
00:17:14
wanted to turn on him. Yeah, it seems like they have a
00:17:18
great relationship, but I mean you, you never.
00:17:19
Know. But you never know.
00:17:20
Yeah. You never.
00:17:21
You never know what skeletons Khalil has in his closet that
00:17:23
would ultimately lead him to do what Roman's doing to all these
00:17:26
other people. That it's a dead dude.
00:17:29
It's a dog eat dog world. But in this book, there's no
00:17:31
hint of that. No the the 2.
00:17:33
Are that are tight, he's as loyal as can be.
00:17:36
Oh, I love you're, you're right. I love those.
00:17:37
Every time he answers the phone he says you know Pax Romana or
00:17:41
you know, beanie Beanie V Cheese, something like.
00:17:43
That Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:46
I mean, Roman, Dante, his his parents were into something from
00:17:51
from the ancients. Yeah.
00:17:53
You know, that's a great quote you pulled about cash money,
00:17:56
power, like all that plays into it.
00:17:58
But here's another one that that I pulled that gets to what we're
00:18:01
talking about. Not only Roman, but all the
00:18:03
other gang leaders. Sometimes the man wearing the
00:18:06
crown ain't the man that's supposed to be the king, you
00:18:12
know? The leader isn't always supposed
00:18:14
to be in that position. The king might be the quieter 1,
00:18:18
the subtle one, the one nobody suspected.
00:18:21
Right. But then they'll show their true
00:18:23
colors at some point. And, and The thing is, they get
00:18:28
to choose the time and place. Roman kept telling his brother,
00:18:31
Just wait for we're going to get out of this.
00:18:33
We're going to get through this. The end, you know?
00:18:35
And Dante, where's the end? And I felt like in the
00:18:38
beginning, Rome believed there was an end.
00:18:41
I whacked these dudes, cut off the head of the snake.
00:18:44
Game's over. Debt is, you know, doesn't need
00:18:46
to be paid. And I think he believed that at
00:18:49
1st. And he told Dante, I'll do this
00:18:51
for you. We'll cut the head off the
00:18:52
snake. It's over.
00:18:54
Every time Dante kept asking him, like, this crisis mode
00:18:57
getting worse, how long is this going to go on?
00:19:00
Rome's answers subtly changed to make you feel less confident
00:19:04
that he thinks it will end. And he knew it wasn't going to
00:19:08
end. And he knew the game.
00:19:09
And the cycle continues. And I think that's why Dante had
00:19:12
to do what he did. Like Dante realized the cycle
00:19:16
and Dante is a pawn in the cycle.
00:19:18
If you think about the chess analogy that that Sean had going
00:19:21
as well in the book, Dante was the pawn always will be the
00:19:25
pawn. He's in he's or Rook, you know,
00:19:27
that comes up a bunch. He's he's never going to be the
00:19:29
king or the queen. And Rome realizes he can go from
00:19:34
pawn to Rook to Bishop to king and Dante can't.
00:19:38
And so if Rome is going to play that game and become king, Dante
00:19:41
has no place in that world anymore.
00:19:43
And I that was moving scene when he goes out and and faces the
00:19:49
he. Tries to kill the other gang,
00:19:51
the other gang later. But no, he knew what was going
00:19:53
to happen, though he I don't think he was honestly trying.
00:19:56
Yeah. And then ultimately that that
00:19:58
leads to another stepping stone of Roman becoming the king
00:20:02
because ultimately he gets the head at the end.
00:20:05
Gruesome. Jesus, the competitor.
00:20:06
Yeah, yeah. Just looking this up, very
00:20:08
interesting. I was going to see if Nevaeh had
00:20:10
some Roman ties and no, it's it's a very relatively modern
00:20:16
name, but it's heaven. It's heaven spelled backwards.
00:20:21
Oh dude. Isn't that cool?
00:20:24
John Cosby, this guy, just the depth of his storytelling in the
00:20:32
layers to it are unreal. I, I, you might miss a lot of
00:20:36
these things we're talking about.
00:20:38
I know my first reread, I wasn't sure what Nevaeh meant or first
00:20:42
read what she meant when she said it's too late.
00:20:45
Like, I already did the thing and I realized it was that she
00:20:50
killed her father, gave him the aspirin, you know, knew about
00:20:53
the medicines and how it would interact.
00:20:55
And then at the same time, I didn't catch Ernesto Salazar's
00:21:00
head was the one he was burning cremating at the end.
00:21:02
So there's a lot of these little things.
00:21:04
They come at you fast once that twist is dropped, that you got
00:21:08
to pay attention. Oh, and not to mention the sex
00:21:09
stuff. I was wondering where that was
00:21:12
going, the dominatrix stuff and even jealousy.
00:21:16
Rome gets the girl, but she says something like if she's watching
00:21:22
and burn, does she? She loves both men.
00:21:27
So she's also like a freak herself.
00:21:28
Is she going to be? She seems to be a good influence
00:21:31
through most of this. She's got a steady job working
00:21:33
for the mayor. But then at the same time, I
00:21:35
think she also has a darker side that could come out and this And
00:21:40
you know, you're married to the king now you're going to have to
00:21:44
play a different role then, you know, if you were just a side,
00:21:47
you know, side girl, you know, once once you're in bed with the
00:21:51
king, she's all in like, and I feel like that subtle line where
00:21:55
she's like, I love both, both of the men, the one that when she
00:21:58
was also dominating him, but also the one where he's showing
00:22:01
the strength. She's like addicted to this as
00:22:03
much as he is, but she doesn't show that.
00:22:05
Do you think he knows She knows that he killed her, her
00:22:08
brothers? Oh, that's a good question.
00:22:13
I don't think so. But will she figure it out?
00:22:18
That means somebody tell her. There's a lot of people that
00:22:20
could tell her too. A.
00:22:21
Lot of people could tell her, but I think she suddenly knows
00:22:25
and she's accepting of it. Yeah, that, you know, that
00:22:29
probably is the right read. I like how it's left open-ended.
00:22:33
It's it's super open. You could totally do another
00:22:35
book of this. All of Roman Carruthers in the
00:22:37
second Dude, there's. So much I would like a book of
00:22:40
him at his powers as height 1st and then the trilogy to end with
00:22:44
his downfall. I think he.
00:22:45
Knew that this game was never he was never getting out.
00:22:50
There's no end. Yeah, as.
00:22:51
Soon as he met. That other rich black guy in
00:22:57
Richmond who was essentially. Torrent.
00:22:59
And Tranquil's business associates slash essentially
00:23:03
just something like that. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:05
Slate. Something, yeah.
00:23:08
Yeah. 'Cause yeah, I think that was
00:23:10
when he was like. There's other masters.
00:23:14
Another kingpin? There's always someone above
00:23:17
pulling the string, yeah. Exactly.
00:23:19
And you always got to please them.
00:23:20
I think he once you're in the game, you don't get out of the
00:23:22
game. You just got to if you got to.
00:23:25
Win the game, you. Got dominant, you got to win,
00:23:27
you got to. Win the game.
00:23:28
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:28
Because there was also that subtle.
00:23:33
Note by whether. It was torn or tranquil.
00:23:37
Where he says. He already got permission from
00:23:40
Slade to to kill us like it. So like he's he's already in bed
00:23:43
with him. You know, exactly he was, it was
00:23:46
this whole this whole this whole time it was 3D chess.
00:23:49
He was playing everybody and he he was kind of foreshadowing it,
00:23:52
you know, like saying, you know, we were we're kind of in on the
00:23:54
game. But ultimately, when we get that
00:23:56
final turn and all of his boys turned his gun on him, like,
00:24:00
wow, this guy, really, he was smarter than than Torrent.
00:24:04
That was a mind. Boggling scene because when,
00:24:07
when was it Chauncey or Clint? Chauncey I think was his name.
00:24:12
The cop, when he turns I'm like Oh my God.
00:24:15
And then when Rome turns the tables on him, I'm like oh and
00:24:19
he was secretly paid. Not really paying off the other
00:24:21
guys, but making them rich because he, he knew from the
00:24:24
beginning his game plan had to be get on the inside.
00:24:28
And I, I was wondering why he wanted to get on the inside.
00:24:30
I was like, does he want to get close enough to eventually, you
00:24:33
know, take the shot or pull a knife?
00:24:35
That wasn't the plan at all. Getting inside to him meant
00:24:38
using his money and influence to get people to have his back to,
00:24:43
to build Curt, you know, to get currency, build loyalty.
00:24:46
And ultimately that was his game plan, which does take time.
00:24:49
And Dante didn't see it. Dante wasn't, you know, able to
00:24:52
play that long game. He he was, he became a pawn to
00:24:55
Rome where he's like, you got to keep up this Playboy lifestyle
00:24:58
as a distraction to make people think we're not serious.
00:25:01
I'm not serious. But secretly behind the scenes,
00:25:04
he's buying off all these people, setting them up with
00:25:06
Iras, investment accounts, padding their bank account, and
00:25:10
all of a sudden they'll do his bidding.
00:25:11
So Rome is playing. Deep, deep, deep.
00:25:16
Chess. And I like how the chess analogy
00:25:18
was called out. Not to mention Sean's writing
00:25:21
straight from blacktop wasteland is so vivid, so descriptive.
00:25:25
He can use similes, metaphors, analogies.
00:25:28
He can make so many comparisons to things that his writing just
00:25:32
pops. I feel like every sentence is so
00:25:35
intentional. And that's something that has
00:25:38
gone through every one of his books, every.
00:25:40
Like I I don't know an author who has been that consistent,
00:25:44
not only with great books, but with this level of writing that
00:25:48
almost borderline at times is poetic.
00:25:52
Oh, very much so. It's amazing prose.
00:25:54
It's. Amazing dialogue, but at the
00:25:56
same time behind it all, whether you're describing a setting,
00:25:59
family dynamics, character relationships, you're doing it
00:26:02
using this almost poetry and making these and, you know,
00:26:06
comparisons and and similes that are so vivid to the reader.
00:26:12
His books more than any other I read.
00:26:15
Become real. Even though it's a world so far
00:26:17
and from my upbringing so far and from my background, he's
00:26:20
able to use language that paints it so vibrantly that the reader
00:26:26
as far and as you are, you know, white boy, you know, grown up on
00:26:30
Long Island, middle income families.
00:26:32
Like I know nothing about his Deep South broken small town
00:26:35
kind of feel. Yet he paints it so well that I
00:26:38
can I, I know who's who. I, I get the dynamics of it all.
00:26:42
I feel like I'm there. Yeah, I mean.
00:26:46
I'm not going to say that I was there, but like growing up in,
00:26:50
you know, Fredericksburg and having my family, you know, like
00:26:53
I have cousins who did hardcore drugs and got caught up in that
00:26:58
kind of stuff. And you know, I never saw any
00:27:00
like sort of. Drug deal, Gangster stuff.
00:27:03
But like just that small town life and everybody knowing
00:27:07
everybody and, you know, someone sleeping with someone else's
00:27:11
husband and stuff like that. And like, I've seen all of that.
00:27:14
And like that was so vivid to me.
00:27:16
And then throwing in this, you know, that's half the reason why
00:27:20
people love The Godfather, love Goodfellas.
00:27:23
Love. The wires, because they want to
00:27:27
be like like that. They want to be the Stringer
00:27:29
bells of the world. They want a taste of it.
00:27:31
Yeah, you know. It's living vicariously through
00:27:34
our reading, movies, TV shows, whatever you know it's and oh,
00:27:41
another gut wrenching scene in this book is when he kills, he
00:27:45
has Cassidy killed. And that is, that is.
00:27:50
Directly taken from Breaking Bad.
00:27:53
Oh really? OK.
00:27:54
Yeah, interesting. The The girl comes back Walter
00:27:57
White. Has his associates girl or
00:28:01
essentially kills his associates girl and then that comes back to
00:28:04
like I thought that was going to be a more.
00:28:08
I thought that was going to cause.
00:28:09
Dante to turn on him, you know, he was going to figure it out
00:28:11
somehow, but ultimately, you know, but Dante is not that kind
00:28:14
of. Character to put the pieces
00:28:16
together? No, but but that just shows.
00:28:18
Roman starts off by justifying everything because I love my
00:28:22
family so much and ends up using his family and that's why Nevaeh
00:28:26
leaves and that's and and and Dante off himself because they
00:28:30
were, they were being used by Roman for him to get this power,
00:28:33
to get the upper hand, but he was doing it for them.
00:28:36
And it's like that. You're doing it.
00:28:39
For something. But by doing it, you're hurting
00:28:42
them. You know, you're doing it for
00:28:44
family, but by doing this, you're ripping the family apart.
00:28:48
And he he's, you know, between a rock and a hard place.
00:28:50
What else can he do but try to win the game?
00:28:53
And it it tears this family apart.
00:28:56
And maybe the original sin, as as he writes in the book, was
00:29:01
covering up his mother's death. Was it?
00:29:05
Is this all happening? Because his father taught him
00:29:07
the lesson of secrets, keeping things in the family, you know,
00:29:12
not confronting reality. You know, we're going to sweep
00:29:15
this under the rug. Him and his brother and his
00:29:17
sister never talk about it. Bet that led.
00:29:21
To this inner fire just burning and he tries to express it
00:29:26
through the sexual deviance. It doesn't seem to satisfy.
00:29:29
It does enough. It kind of bandages him up, gets
00:29:32
him through it also. There's an element of him trying
00:29:35
to get, you know, there's a reason why he asked the
00:29:39
domination was called a Mama and be punished like he he feels
00:29:42
sorry for what he did to his mom, you know?
00:29:44
So he wants some sort of penance there, right?
00:29:46
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:47
At this absolution he thinks he'll get from letting Mama be
00:29:50
violent to him like he was to her.
00:29:56
Deep stuff and dark. Stuff and not a happy ending.
00:29:59
I also think he. Was really driven by you know
00:30:02
that that fatherly love and. For the longest.
00:30:07
Time, you know, like you said, this disappearance of his mom
00:30:11
was this legend, and it always hung over his father like that.
00:30:15
Everyone thought that he did it, you know, and his father, hard
00:30:21
working man, made everything but didn't get the respect put on
00:30:25
his name. And so he comes back to town
00:30:28
and. Now people can fear.
00:30:31
The Carruthers name he is. You know he is.
00:30:35
Making his father proud. Trying to at least.
00:30:40
Intense, intense. Book too, but we're like you're
00:30:44
right, it's not like the intensity.
00:30:46
I feel like all the sinners bleed and king of ashes both
00:30:51
have like the. Same level of.
00:30:54
Intensity, but it's like different kinds of intensity.
00:30:56
Whereas that one was way more, you know, like, I was just
00:30:59
freaked out. This one is just emotionally
00:31:02
intense to be a family. Family comes through.
00:31:05
Yeah. The family drama.
00:31:07
Is so intense, the stakes are so high, the characters are so.
00:31:12
Broken and. Fragile where all the sinners
00:31:14
bleed was. 1 Madman. Can make a whole community feel
00:31:22
that if a whole community go through this grief and here it's
00:31:27
just like within this family and this family up against what
00:31:30
seems like up against the world, but you're up against.
00:31:34
Gangsters, you're. Really.
00:31:35
Yourself, physically, you're up against the gangsters trying to
00:31:38
survive, but what you're really trying to survive against is
00:31:41
your family falling apart. Yeah.
00:31:44
Woof. What a book?
00:31:48
Shall we scorecard it? Well, scorecard, it did action.
00:31:52
I think we got to go. Action Suspense.
00:31:58
I'm not looking. For shoot em up action in this,
00:32:00
which it happens a lot, there's a shoot out, there's a bomb goes
00:32:03
off, there's an explosion. I'm looking for the suspense of
00:32:05
the meet. You know when those meetings go
00:32:07
down, the first meeting where he walks in and realizes, you know,
00:32:11
these are real Cowboys like this.
00:32:12
This is the, the, the real deal. And he went in and be able to.
00:32:16
Sweet talk his way. I go, I can make you money.
00:32:19
Yep, make a deal. Use his college boys skills and
00:32:23
as he's learning that's not the way it is and he learns at the
00:32:26
price of his teeth and his brother Spinky.
00:32:28
That is suspense to me. So I think I'm going 8 out of
00:32:31
10. That's a that's a good score.
00:32:33
I think I was going to go 8I. What's interesting is right,
00:32:36
this book to me, I had no idea where it was going when we're
00:32:40
starting off and. It it does start.
00:32:43
Off a little slow, you know, because I didn't, I didn't
00:32:46
purposely didn't read the the good reads or Amazon
00:32:50
description. I just wanted to go into it
00:32:53
knowing nothing. And when we're starting off and
00:32:57
it's like, oh, you know, his dad gets run off the road.
00:32:59
I thought it was going to be this whole murder mystery type
00:33:01
thing, you know, very similar, like what we were having to do
00:33:04
in. Although I guess because I was.
00:33:07
Used to her. I was judging it based on his
00:33:10
last book, All the Sinners Bleed, but then.
00:33:12
Really just to get. This, you know, downfall, you
00:33:15
know, this rise of this of this man, but ultimately his like the
00:33:20
downfall of Roman Carruthers, right?
00:33:22
Like was intense. But the first part of the book
00:33:26
is a little slow, but then it like turns a corner and it's
00:33:31
like a gut wrenching pace of just like we're popping
00:33:36
different things and everything is being put into motion and you
00:33:39
don't know what like what's going to happen next.
00:33:41
And so that I was on the edge of my seat like.
00:33:46
That brings me all. Back to suspense here, like I
00:33:49
think it's very suspenseful, like just the the, the pace of
00:33:52
of how the story builds and builds and builds and the
00:33:55
crescendos and then ends. Yeah, I don't.
00:33:58
Know if you could do it better with that one, that final scene,
00:34:02
not final final scene, but of essentially a final scene in the
00:34:04
warehouse, the final meeting, final showdown.
00:34:08
I don't know if you can do it better if you're talking
00:34:10
suspense, edge of your seat stuff and then a double twist.
00:34:14
And because of all that, plot to me is A10.
00:34:21
The story is so well crafted, everything matters.
00:34:26
Everything you learn about the characters, how it reveals
00:34:28
nothing, is fluff. And I.
00:34:31
Am just along for the ride every step of the way, even when it's
00:34:33
slow in the beginning. I I the reason I'm not docking
00:34:37
it for that is I don't it was just slow on kind of action.
00:34:40
But he's not an action writer, right?
00:34:43
It's crime suspense novel. So it's it's not a beach read
00:34:46
summer thriller that we're used to in the mid trap Vince Flynn
00:34:50
kind of style. So I'm not going to dock it on
00:34:53
plot for that because the character building done during
00:34:56
that first third of the book is just phenomenal and it all pays
00:35:00
off. So I am giving it that time.
00:35:02
Wow, Big 10. Yeah.
00:35:05
I mean, I just don't know where I would dock it.
00:35:09
Like I don't really see anything or or have any anything that
00:35:12
comes to mind where. Like there's this.
00:35:15
Glaring plot holes like there's it's, it's pretty buttoned up
00:35:19
and it's the one. Not to cut you off the 1 is when
00:35:24
they're strong arming the guy into giving the contract, he
00:35:28
strong arms the mayor pretty well.
00:35:31
But when they actually commit that crime, they tie up, they,
00:35:34
they, they get that guy from one of the they, they forced him to
00:35:38
sign over half of his company, 51% of his company.
00:35:42
That was maybe the one moment where I was like.
00:35:46
This really your game? Plan just force a guy to sign a
00:35:49
document that would never actually hold up in court
00:35:51
because they can claim it was forced and under duress and
00:35:55
going to this whole legal proceeding like.
00:35:58
I just the. One thing that kind of took me
00:36:01
out of it, plot wiser buying wise, was when they forced that
00:36:03
guy to sign the contract, giving up half his company.
00:36:08
I would agree. With that, if if it was, they
00:36:10
were only trying to blackmail them for, you know,
00:36:13
prostitution, but ultimately they threatened his life, right,
00:36:18
They said that. So I mean, that's just how the
00:36:21
game is played. I also thought that the
00:36:23
progression of this story in the beginning, like I'm like, is
00:36:27
this all taking place within a week?
00:36:29
But no, like it was, it was months in a week overtime.
00:36:32
He wasn't. Going by.
00:36:34
And you know it. It took time and it it makes
00:36:36
sense, right? You need time to.
00:36:39
Have the stocks? Make money and these pump and
00:36:42
dump schemes so that all that stuff wouldn't happen overnight.
00:36:46
Yeah, I guess that's just my one.
00:36:48
Like it was a little wave, the magic wand, you know, like wave
00:36:51
your hand, sleight of hand. Just we'll do this.
00:36:53
Pump and dump. I'm really good at it.
00:36:56
You sure? I don't know if you you make 5.
00:36:59
100. Overnight with that I can pump
00:37:03
and dump whenever I want just to get rich.
00:37:05
If it was that easy to just pump and dump whenever you want to
00:37:07
get rich. So many of us.
00:37:10
Idiots would be doing that, you know, so I get it was explained
00:37:14
away. Like he has the connections.
00:37:15
He knows who's who to call. He has people who will pump up a
00:37:18
stock and then they'll sell it off.
00:37:20
It was just a little hand WAVY on how some of the actual
00:37:23
financials get done and was also a little hand WAVY on let's just
00:37:27
threaten this guy's life and then we'll we'll get him to sign
00:37:30
the document we needed to sign. Like that's plot armor.
00:37:32
You could do that at any point in any story for any reason.
00:37:35
Just go, I'm going to kill you, sign this thing and then they
00:37:38
sign it and you move on. See, look, I got this thing a
00:37:42
little plot Armory wave your hand kind of move going.
00:37:46
On push back a. Little bit though, because.
00:37:47
I think it also shows at. That point.
00:37:51
We see Roman like turning even more the fact that he would even
00:37:55
in a past in his past job, he would have figured out a way to,
00:38:01
you know, get that doing some sort of above board, above
00:38:05
board, you know, legal. Conversation.
00:38:09
You know some. Sort of coercion to to make this
00:38:13
guy buy into it. And, and now he's willing to
00:38:18
threaten some guy's life just to get, you know, his signature.
00:38:22
Like that was like pretty intense.
00:38:24
Yeah, I guess since. I'm I'm saying all this, I
00:38:26
shouldn't have gone 10 out of 10 on that's.
00:38:28
Why? I'm going to go four and a.
00:38:30
Half on by and I thought the clot was crafted so well, but if
00:38:32
I think about that little tiny thing, that's the only thing
00:38:35
that loses me half a point. So yeah, I'll give you that.
00:38:38
It's shown Roman's turn. I will also say maybe it chose
00:38:40
the level of corruption the way Chauncey with the Police
00:38:43
Department is that corrupt in the end.
00:38:44
And the mayor, right, The mayor also has all these issues going
00:38:48
on. It it makes sense.
00:38:51
But it still rubbed me the wrong way as I read it.
00:38:53
So half a point, I love straight.
00:38:56
Up the He gets into the mayor's office and the door closes and
00:38:59
the mayor's like. I know why you're here, boy.
00:39:02
Let's just let's strike it around the Bush.
00:39:05
How much you're going to give me, I'm going to give you the
00:39:07
contract. That's how it works.
00:39:09
That's. How it works?
00:39:12
What you're buying? I'm a little bit lower than I'm
00:39:15
a four, I think because. Some of those things.
00:39:21
We mentioned. A little bit with the trying to,
00:39:27
I wasn't that bought in to like, I guess I needed to see a little
00:39:31
bit more of like his prowess as this financial advisor.
00:39:35
Financial. Advisor, you know, if we'd had
00:39:36
maybe like one or two more scenes in the beginning, but the
00:39:41
opening scene that did. Enough for me, yeah.
00:39:44
I don't know, I've just. Yeah, 4 I mean, I read this.
00:39:48
Book in two days I've been on the Kik, I've been reading an
00:39:50
audio book in two days that usually don't do that.
00:39:53
And this one I never once questioned like how much longer
00:39:57
is left or I am I going to just have to power through this or
00:40:00
when will this be over? Not once did that come into my
00:40:02
mind. And a couple of books we've read
00:40:04
recently, not the last few, but a couple back I was kind of
00:40:08
struggling to get through it. I would check the time, you know
00:40:11
the time stamp quite a bit to be like where we at.
00:40:14
This one never. I was just straight in it for
00:40:16
the ride. I was.
00:40:17
I was transported. It was funny because I.
00:40:19
Was checking the time, but for a different reason because I
00:40:22
didn't want it to end. Like I was like, yeah, oh wait,
00:40:25
there's only 10 minutes left. Like, oh, that's it.
00:40:28
Yeah, I'm more I. Want more?
00:40:30
I would spend so much time. With these characters, I still
00:40:33
think that way about blacktop wasteland.
00:40:34
I'd I'd go back to that trailer unit.
00:40:37
I'd be hanging outside the gas station with the drag racing,
00:40:40
like Sean has this ability to take you to these places and
00:40:43
make you want to stay there, even though a lot of them are
00:40:46
bad places with bad people. You want to be the fly on the
00:40:49
wall, right? Right.
00:40:51
Right. You mentioned.
00:40:53
Earlier about bad guys, yeah. They're good.
00:41:01
I think there are 5. For me.
00:41:04
And I'm going to throw in. Like a little bit of Rome in.
00:41:07
There. Yeah.
00:41:09
I'll, I'll go, I'll match you on that five, especially if you do
00:41:13
that, especially if you do that. I do like that because.
00:41:19
Ultimately, I I think he becomes the villain.
00:41:21
Like he, he, he, it's it's his reason that his entire family is
00:41:27
gone. So that's why the good guys.
00:41:32
I like Nevaeh. Jealousy was was a good
00:41:37
character but. Everyone is so.
00:41:40
Flawed. It's kind of hard to say like
00:41:43
good guys like I like Dante, like this, this super innocent,
00:41:49
you know, perfectly innocent bystander, like like pawn,
00:41:52
right? Like, ultimately you could say
00:41:55
that and he thinks that everything is his fault, right?
00:41:58
Going back to the death of his mother, because he was the one
00:42:01
who questioned. He was the one who saw adultery
00:42:03
and they brought it to his brother's attention.
00:42:05
If he'd never done that, then maybe she'd still be alive like.
00:42:09
You know, in this fact of trying.
00:42:10
To again another one who? Loved his father for.
00:42:15
What he did for him and you, you kind of realize that was
00:42:20
something through the book. I'm like why this guy is such a
00:42:22
fuck up? Like why does he love his dad so
00:42:24
much? But I like now you then you
00:42:26
realize why why he does. Yeah.
00:42:28
And what? Pains in.
00:42:29
Like why he couldn't go to the hospital, Yeah.
00:42:32
So what do we do for good? Guys, I can't even like.
00:42:39
Who are the good guys? I feel like these categories
00:42:43
don't even apply to this gritty, realistic world that that Sean
00:42:47
is showing. We're all flawed.
00:42:50
And like you said, Dante is the clearest example.
00:42:52
He's he's innocent, he's naive. But to the community of
00:42:55
Jefferson run, he's like the worst of them all.
00:42:57
He's always on drugs. He's trying to sell the drugs,
00:43:01
which gets him in this money hole.
00:43:03
He's caught in all these parties, all these bad
00:43:05
situations. Like he's the label, you know,
00:43:09
he's the one who is the label of like drop out, you know, drunk,
00:43:14
drug addict, bad boy. It is just an innocent child
00:43:18
really deep down. So he's almost the only good guy
00:43:22
in the story. Even though he has all these
00:43:24
these flaws and bad qualities. He he doesn't want to burn, you
00:43:29
know, the Cassidy, he doesn't want to, he wants to help and
00:43:34
save these people. And he also has to kill that.
00:43:38
That one guy, Stodgy or Stodi, he's got to hit him in that
00:43:43
opening scene when they meet with the gangsters.
00:43:46
The hammer. Yeah, he comes out.
00:43:48
With the hammer, he doesn't even want to do that, you know, And
00:43:52
he still feels guilty about that down the road.
00:43:54
So he's almost the only one you can classify as.
00:43:56
And Nevaeh, she's, you know, she's one of the best parts of
00:44:00
this book because she's such a rock.
00:44:02
So much has been laid on her, yet she's in the dark about it,
00:44:05
right? You know, they're hiding so much
00:44:08
from her. You need that juxtaposition.
00:44:09
With her to like sort of balance out the story, she's not in on
00:44:14
the secret. Yeah, you need her.
00:44:15
She's such a strong character. I think it brings good guys to a
00:44:18
fore. What if we did?
00:44:20
Just characters in general. 10 points like a. 10 points for.
00:44:23
Characters. So you would want to go 9.
00:44:28
Yeah, I think I'd go nine. Yeah, I, I, I agree with you.
00:44:32
I think, you know, throwing in all these other, you know,
00:44:38
little might like Khalil, love that character.
00:44:42
Yeah. And just the development of.
00:44:44
Each of these characters, their place in this world of Jefferson
00:44:47
Run, they all make sense. You, you, you know who they are.
00:44:51
You can identify it. So yeah, I think 9 out of 10 you
00:44:54
could even. Say right Roman is the worst
00:44:57
thing that could have had happened to Jefferson run
00:45:00
because as soon as he shows up the shit goes out of.
00:45:03
Control. People start dying, right?
00:45:05
Getty gets killed. All of these shootouts, the
00:45:09
gangsters. Are going after each other.
00:45:11
There's they they, they shoot up the picnic.
00:45:14
Yeah. They blow up the vape.
00:45:16
Shop. All because of Roman all.
00:45:19
Because of him. All because of him trying to.
00:45:21
Protect his family, His secret? But his protect.
00:45:24
His brother, yeah. And his sister.
00:45:27
He's the, he's the big. Is he the big dad?
00:45:30
See, I think you can. Make an argument that he is.
00:45:32
I think you could do. Wow, even against.
00:45:36
Torrent and Tranquil and Dante we're walking away saying Rome
00:45:41
is the bad guy. He's.
00:45:43
The anti hero essentially, right Yeah, it's true.
00:45:45
That's. Just great storytelling.
00:45:47
No, it is. You can have all this Gray
00:45:49
matter, you know, or we just don't know who's who.
00:45:52
We don't know. We're questioning what's right
00:45:53
and what's wrong. You know, it sounds like protect
00:45:56
my family to the death. And, you know, OK, that's the
00:45:59
good side, right? But here it's like, at what
00:46:03
cost? At what cost?
00:46:05
Yeah, yeah. And, and at what cost to that
00:46:07
family that you're protecting? Wow.
00:46:10
Our setting. It's a little unfair for me to
00:46:13
do this. But do you feel?
00:46:16
The setting held up to what we saw in some of his other books.
00:46:21
That's interesting. Is it an?
00:46:23
Unfair question a little bit because I feel.
00:46:27
Like blacktop wasteland. That's the standard.
00:46:30
And. And I think all this in his
00:46:33
bleed, Sure. Those two.
00:46:37
Settings Remember the school? Remember the woods that like
00:46:41
describing the. Woods describing that flag
00:46:43
factory. Yeah.
00:46:46
The fish place. Yeah.
00:46:50
I don't like the description of the Crematory of these rundown,
00:46:55
you know, like these institutions that I can just
00:46:59
picture them in my mind. You know, I haven't driven
00:47:02
through this. Reminds me of like Petersburg,
00:47:04
which is like the. Sure.
00:47:05
Yeah, yeah. Prime.
00:47:06
Capital of of. Virginia South of Richmond,
00:47:08
Yeah. So.
00:47:11
Yeah, I could say. It's in some of those warehouses
00:47:14
and stuff. So just not I guess.
00:47:16
Measuring it up against him, it's it's like a four.
00:47:19
Sure. Yeah.
00:47:20
So we. We'll compare it just to to his
00:47:23
other work and it's it's, it's not a five, it's objectively.
00:47:26
Probably a four out of five. I think it just feels a little
00:47:28
bit less just because I'm comparing it, which is not fair.
00:47:32
But I think it's a four out of five.
00:47:33
I I do think this town, we say this all the time, you know,
00:47:36
like it's a fictional town. It's a fictional town.
00:47:39
But he makes it feel so real. Exactly.
00:47:41
I was just going to say, we say it all the time.
00:47:42
Is this real? Is it not?
00:47:44
Is it a character? Is it have life?
00:47:46
It has its own story, its own personality.
00:47:49
It does. It does.
00:47:50
So it comes alive in that matter.
00:47:53
It wasn't as much as blacktop wasteland.
00:47:56
Like, you could feel the heat coming off the asphalt in that
00:47:59
book, you know? Yeah.
00:48:03
What does that mean? For the cover.
00:48:07
His covers have been. Good so far, but I think this
00:48:11
one is great. I'm glad.
00:48:14
You said that because I think this covers the five five out of
00:48:17
five. I I might say the.
00:48:18
Same. And to me.
00:48:21
As we were getting that final description of his silhouette
00:48:25
against the the burning, it makes it even better.
00:48:29
It makes it even better. Like I'm envisioning like his
00:48:31
head would be right where that very dark red burning is.
00:48:37
And exactly to throw in the the railroad tracks where his mom
00:48:40
was last found with her car. With the car exactly.
00:48:45
Don't need to see it like that. Car might be hiding out there
00:48:48
under those bushes. Or it might you know exactly.
00:48:51
Why they put the the railroad tracks the tracks exactly?
00:48:55
And then just. Having these flames with, with
00:48:57
ashes and, you know, juxtapose because so many times they're at
00:49:01
the Crematory, they're burning people like the every,
00:49:03
everything burns, Yeah. Great theme.
00:49:07
It's such a motif. In the book and the cover just
00:49:10
encapsulates this cover. It looks good if you just see it
00:49:13
on a shelf. This cover is perfect once you
00:49:18
read the book, yes. The book.
00:49:21
You know what? That's what makes a cover A5 out
00:49:23
of five is when the book makes the cover better.
00:49:26
When the cover is already good and the book makes it better,
00:49:29
you have a winner. So five out of five on that.
00:49:32
That's. Why?
00:49:32
It's Judger covered by the book. That's it.
00:49:34
That's it. A thriller pod tagline, baby.
00:49:39
Or free space. Take it away.
00:49:41
What are you going to say? I think I'm going to go Khalil.
00:49:43
He, he was my favorite character in the book.
00:49:46
Super interesting, intriguing guy.
00:49:48
This guy like he's at one point he's wearing like a pea coat
00:49:51
with this other hat. Like every time he shows up,
00:49:53
he's dressed in like some different outfit and he like
00:49:56
pops up out of nowhere, scares the shit out of Dante sometimes.
00:50:00
Like all the all the Roman quotes at one point he got he's
00:50:04
like, I'm sightseeing at Edgar Allan Bo's.
00:50:09
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, house or something like that.
00:50:11
It's yeah, it was, it was a funny scene.
00:50:13
Like, yeah, he, he. Brings in a little.
00:50:15
Bit of Comic Relief in a book that you like you, you need a
00:50:18
little bit of that like every now and then just to pull you
00:50:20
out of this like deep dark hole of this, you know, gangster
00:50:25
network. Sure.
00:50:27
So I'm going, I'm taking Khalil. I love that.
00:50:33
I'm going to go with I'm going with the meats.
00:50:37
Every time there was a meet up between these guys, I just got
00:50:42
excited. It might have happened to one
00:50:46
too many times in the end, but every time Rome had to go face
00:50:50
the brothers and he had to like kind of psych himself up.
00:50:54
And he's sitting there saying like.
00:50:57
All these feelings all. Squeeziness in the stomach
00:50:59
suppress it. I got to got to put on a show
00:51:02
and he, he slowly got more comfortable doing that.
00:51:05
I, I think it, and I guess it's the broader point is, or the
00:51:08
broader free spaces, Rome's downfall or if you will, his his
00:51:12
ascendancy. It's both his downfall and his
00:51:14
ascendancy. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:16
Yeah, so. All that being tied together and
00:51:18
that being encapsulated every time he has to actually speak
00:51:21
and present in front of the brothers and outplay them.
00:51:24
And there's a few times they think, you know, college boys
00:51:27
running his mouth. Let's kill him.
00:51:28
You're no use to me. And he gets himself out of it
00:51:30
every time. I I just think those scenes kept
00:51:34
the book going and were were the most thrilling and for it to
00:51:37
culminate in the best one of them all when his.
00:51:42
Guys, turn on. Torrent I just think all those
00:51:47
were crafted so well. They were my favorite scenes to
00:51:49
read and it had the the payoff that you want and it all
00:51:53
culminated in that exact scene. I enjoyed getting even better
00:51:56
with the twist and and and double twist being revealed
00:51:59
similarly. I guess you could have given it
00:52:00
to the twist of the flashback with the mom because it might.
00:52:04
That's when my jaw dropped. That would be another one.
00:52:06
That's when you texted me like. What A twist.
00:52:09
Yeah, I was like. Whoa, that was a twist.
00:52:12
And then I almost wanted to text you again.
00:52:13
Whoa, that was a twist at the meet up.
00:52:16
But yeah, I was referring to the mom finding out about the mom.
00:52:18
Once I got there, I figured it was.
00:52:20
That that was that 10 and the sister finds.
00:52:22
The urn, she smashes it and rage and has the the jewellery from
00:52:26
her mom. I was like oh so heartbreaking.
00:52:29
What happens to the sister so? Heartbreaking.
00:52:33
An interesting. Now, you say those meetups like
00:52:38
an interesting version of this book would be to turn it into
00:52:40
like a play, but where you. You have it just be.
00:52:47
A The series of meetups between between him and Rome and like
00:52:51
maybe him and his family, like Rome and tranquil and then Rome
00:52:54
and his family. Like it you're, you're in like 1
00:52:57
location. Oh, be great.
00:52:58
And it's, it's like the, you know, I don't know, I don't know
00:53:01
how you would do it. I'm not a playwright but like oh
00:53:03
I completely agree. I this is, you know, it's like
00:53:07
that movie Fences. Did you see that?
00:53:09
Yeah, I did. Originally created.
00:53:11
For stage, I think this one would work great.
00:53:14
With that, you go back and forth him you, you basically have to
00:53:17
watch him meet with the gangsters, then go meet with his
00:53:19
family, meet with the gangsters, meet with his family and like
00:53:22
juggle these two worlds and the stage can be kind of split or or
00:53:25
turn and you right it like clearly showing you he's trying
00:53:28
to balance these two things and the better he gets at balancing
00:53:32
it, the worse it's becoming for both of them.
00:53:34
Right. Wow, I like that.
00:53:38
That's that's a great idea all. Right, So what does?
00:53:40
That what does that give us here?
00:53:41
M12. 3. 4545 for me, 45 1/2 for. Me, I gave it that extra half on
00:53:51
by him. Great buck, dude.
00:53:54
Woof. Sean.
00:53:56
Just. Always brings the action.
00:53:57
I just, I just think he's a talented writer doing what he's
00:54:01
meant to do. He's just a storyteller in and
00:54:04
out. Hope we get many more of.
00:54:05
These I'll be happy many more Sean essay Cosby book every
00:54:10
year. Absolutely, I'll read.
00:54:12
Anything he writes. All right, well, you.
00:54:16
Want to you want to take us out with something?
00:54:17
I think you're forgetting something this time.
00:54:18
Like you know what? I made a promise.
00:54:22
Every book we covered, I was going to do the Limerick.
00:54:24
I'm kind of proud of this one. I should have brought it up
00:54:26
sooner. But yeah.
00:54:29
They call him the king of ashes. And in trial by fire he passes.
00:54:34
He'll fight to the death till his family's last breath As his
00:54:38
demons haunt him in flashes. Oh.
00:54:41
That's a good 1M. Yeah, dude.
00:54:44
I was feeling it for that one. I was inspired.
00:54:46
That could just be like a. Like a you could just publish
00:54:48
that as a Limerick. Not even like as a book review
00:54:50
dude. There you go, I'm.
00:54:54
Gonna I'm gonna put all these together once this once, once we
00:54:57
finish and we have all of them, I'll I'll make a little put this
00:55:00
one on the cover. Yeah, well, that's a good.
00:55:02
That's a good idea. All right.
00:55:04
What? Are we?
00:55:04
What are we? Covering next time, like what's
00:55:06
what's the schedule? Oh boy.
00:55:09
That's a good question. Kind of flying by the seat of
00:55:14
her. Pants here, but Sons of Valor 4
00:55:16
came out. Today, yes.
00:55:18
And I pre. Purchased that so we can listen
00:55:20
to that. Supreme Justice.
00:55:23
By Eric Bishop Eric Bishop we I'd.
00:55:26
Love to come back to oh, have you heard about this one?
00:55:29
Ryan Pope POTE, debut author. His book Blood and Treasure came
00:55:34
out and I think it was Chris recommended it in our patron
00:55:38
group as our next book club book.
00:55:39
We'll see how many votes it gets, but I I've been seeing
00:55:42
that one make the rounds also published today as we record and
00:55:46
that that one also looks great so.
00:55:50
We've got some options here. All right, add.
00:55:52
It to the list so coming up in the near.
00:55:55
Future Sons of Valor 4 We also said we want to do some Steve
00:56:00
Berry with his next book, the Alexandria Link.
00:56:04
And getting ready. For the new Dan Brown book in
00:56:07
September, we want to at some point do a couple of Dan
00:56:10
Brown's. We talked about deception point
00:56:12
origin, angels and demons. So hopefully some mix of all
00:56:17
these books will be sprinkled in throughout early August.
00:56:21
And then once the end of August comes, we're doing Terminal is
00:56:25
Dark Wolf, the TV show. So I think that's pretty much
00:56:28
our August smattering of all these books and then ultimately
00:56:31
the TV show. Yeah, sounds good to me.
00:56:36
All right, well. Before we get out of here, we
00:56:37
need to thank our patients, our deputy director Sherry F and
00:56:41
Brad E, our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Darrell,
00:56:44
George, Matt, Don and Chris. Please subscribe rate interview
00:56:50
to No Limits the Thriller podcast.
00:56:52
You can find us on Twitter, on Thriller, on Thriller Podcast,
00:56:55
on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and as always, just at Rome be Rome.
00:57:02
Everything burns. Everything burns.