I am not really a reader that jumps on the hype train and I think at least 75% of my time is spent reading backlist books. Even when I do buy a popular title when it comes out, there’s no guarantee that I am going to read it straight away.

S.A. Cosby has been on my reading radar for a while and I own a copy of his novel Blacktop Wasteland, but it’s been languishing on my tbr pile for months despite its rave reviews. His newest book All the Sinners Bleed is all over the place and lots of people are talking about it, so on my most recent visit to the bookstore, I picked it up. Then I read it…in about 48 hours and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about when I could get back to it.

Titus Crown is Charon County’s first Black sheriff. He’s recently returned to his hometown after some time in the FBI and he’s going to need those skills to uncover the identity of a serial killer.

When the novel opens, Titus is called to the local high school where there is an active shooter. The shooter is the son of one of his friends from high school and one of the victims is a beloved teacher, Mr. Spearman. It’s hard to make sense of the crime, but as it turns out it’s just the beginning of the horror that will grip Charon.

I love a good thriller/mystery. And I love a main character who can look after himself. Titus is 6’2″ and a former football player, so I am guessing he cuts a pretty imposing figure. He’s a no-nonsense, take-charge kind of guy, but he also has some demons of his own. There’s an incident from his days with the FBI that he alludes to, there’s a strained relationship with his younger brother, Marquis, and then there’s his love life. It’s complicated.

What makes All the Sinners Bleed so propulsive is its straight-forward plot. Cosby doesn’t waste any time igniting the powder keg, but there are other interesting things going on too. There’s the white supremacists who want to march during a town festival and the Black leader of one of the local churches who wants to prevent that march. Small town politics means that the white chairman of the board, Scott Cunningham, thinks Titus answers to him. There’s religious fanaticism and confederate apologists. And bonus: the writing is really solid. It doesn’t get in the way of the plot; it’s muscular when it needs to be but also, at times, poetic.

But there were moments like today when the true nature of existence was revealed to him. Moments when the ephemeral curtain of divine composition was pulled away and entropy strode across the stage. For all his attempts at control, days like today, when he’d seen a boy he’d known since infancy get his chest cratered, reminded him that chaos was the true nature of things.

All the Sinners Bleed is a well-written, violent, dark novel and I loved every minute of it.