Book Review: RAZORBLADE TEARS by S.A. Cosby

RAZORBLADE TEARS by S.A. Cosby

Flatiron Books; 7/6/21

CBTB Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

The Verdict: A gritty, no-holds-barred thrill ride

Buckle up and clear your calendars: one of 2021’s most buzzed-about crime novels has arrived. On the heels of his breakout 2020 release Blacktop Wasteland, acclaimed crime writer S.A. Cosby returns this summer with RAZORBLADE TEARS, a gritty, compulsively readable thriller that packs as much of a punch with action and violence as it does with emotional resonance and depth of character development. RAZORBLADE TEARS centers around a seemingly random act of violence that sets off an inescapable chain reaction for two fathers. When their sons are murdered in a drive-by shooting, Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee team up to avenge their untimely death. Along the way, they confront not only the villains who stole their sons from them, but also—and perhaps even more impactfully—the prejudices that have defined their relationships with their sons, and with one another. RAZORBLADE TEARS moves at a breakneck pace, giving readers a front-row seat to the righteous quest for vengeance that Ike and Buddy Lee are about to undertake. Equal parts brazen, gritty, emotional, and heartfelt, RAZORBLADE TEARS delivers a pitch-perfect blend of action, thrills, and impactful character development. Pick this book up for its no-holds-barred premise, stay for its unforgettable characters and cinematic storytelling.

Plot Details: 

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.

In RAZORBLADE TEARS, S.A. Cosby unspools a thrilling tale of two fathers avenging the deaths of their sons. The only things that Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee have in common are their criminal pasts, and their sons, Isiah and Derek, who are happily married to one another. Ike, a Black man who has spent the last fifteen years putting the mistakes of his youth behind him, now lives a quiet life running his successful lawn care business and staying far away from the criminal world he used to be a part of—and that’s exactly how he likes it. Ike is dismayed, then, to one day answer his door to discover two cops on his doorstep, delivering the worst news any father could imagine: Ike’s son Isiah and his husband Derek have been killed, gunned down in a seemingly random act of violence. Flash forward to Isiah and Derek’s funeral, and Ike is approached by Derek’s father, Buddy Lee. Buddy Lee is a white man with his own criminal past, but unlike Ike, he has no interest in laying low. Fed up with the snail’s pace of the official police investigation into their sons’ murder, and knowing that the cops are unlikely to ever do right by their sons, Buddy Lee suggests to Ike that the two join forces and investigate their sons’ murders together. After all, who better than two grief-stricken fathers to rain down hell on those who took their sons away from them? Ike and Buddy Lee embark on an epic quest for revenge, a mission that finds them digging into their sons’ lives and getting to know their sons in a way that they were never able to while their sons were alive. As thrilling as it is heartbreaking and redemptive, RAZORBLADE TEARS moves between the external circumstances that entangled Isiah and Derek and led to their death, and the complex internal lives of its characters. Building to an explosive, no-holds-barred finale worthy of the big screen, RAZORBLADE TEARS delivers thrills, action, and heart as readers follow Ike and Buddy Lee on their quest to avenge their sons’ death. 

RAZORBLADE TEARS is without a doubt a very bloody, violent, action-packed book, but it wasn’t this book’s action sequences that stuck with me most of all after I turned its final page. In RAZORBLADE TEARS, S.A. Cosby gives readers two protagonists who come alive on the page—the kinds of characters the reader feels they have been given a unique and intimate opportunity to get to know over the course of this story. You would be hard-pressed to dream up a more dynamic or compelling duo to guide you through this story than Ike and Buddy Lee. At first glance, a partnership between Ike and Buddy Lee seems destined for failure. Both Ike and Buddy Lee harbor a fair amount of suspicion towards one another at our story’s outset. Ike, a Black man who has worked hard to distance himself from the crimes for which he served time years ago, is none too impressed with the brazen Buddy Lee, a white man who still has plenty of criminal connections and isn’t afraid to use them. But blood is thicker than water, and when their sons are murdered, Ike and Buddy Lee set aside those differences just enough to team up and punish those who harmed their family. The complex relationship between Ike and Buddy Lee is as much a driving force in this story as any action sequence the author has in store for readers; what begins as a tense relationship defined by mistrust and suspicion evolves over the course of the novel, and readers will be fully invested in its development. Along the way, both Ike and Buddy Lee are confronted with the ways that they failed their sons while their sons were alive. Neither Ike nor Buddy Lee accepted their sons’ sexuality, and, over the course of the novel, both characters have to own up to and confront their prejudices. This quest for revenge, then, also becomes a story of two men seeking redemption for the ways they let their children down, and a story of two men grieving the relationships that they could have had with their children, had they been able to accept them for who they truly were while they were still alive. Redemption and revenge go hand in hand in RAZORBLADE TEARS, and readers will find the vivid development of both Ike and Buddy Lee’s characters as riveting here as the actual quest for revenge that this pair undertakes. Through Ike and Buddy Lee’s interior journeys, Cosby explores themes of racism, masculinity, and homophobia to often heartbreaking effect. Thanks to S.A. Cosby’s superb development of his book’s central characters, RAZORBLADE TEARS manages to be thrilling and emotionally impactful all at once.

RAZORBLADE TEARS is a gritty, vividly-wrought story that comes to life on the page thanks to S.A. Cosby’s vivid prose. This is the kind of thriller where you feel like you can see the story play out in your mind’s eye; detailed and clever turns of phrase particularly bring some of the book’s most violent scenes to life in memorable fashion. That being said: RAZORBLADE TEARS is not a book for the faint of heart. This is a story that depicts all manner of violence on the page, from clever ways to dispose of a body to bloody shootouts and much, much more. Readers who prefer violence in their crime novels to be alluded to rather than explicitly shown will do best to avoid this book, but for those readers out there who love dark, gritty, violent crime novels as much as I do, RAZORBLADE TEARS will be right up your alley. After reading this book, readers will not be surprised to learn that it has already been optioned for the big screen; this is the kind of story that is just begging for a book-to-film adaptation. (No spoilers, but just wait for this book’s final showdown—it can keep pace with the dénouement of any action movie out there.) In this blistering revenge thriller, two fathers will stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to avenge the murders of their sons, and Cosby captures their righteous quest in epic, vivid prose that will stick with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions my own. 

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Book Details: 

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Flatiron Books (July 6, 2021)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250252709

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250252708

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