New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby of Gloucester County has received more recognition for his newest book.
Former President Barack Obama’s 2025 summer reading list includes Cosby’s “King of Ashes,” the fifth volume in his Southern noir novels that combine elements of crime fiction with the dark and gritty atmosphere of the American South.
“One of my favorite crime fiction writers delivers in this story of family, ambition and corruption in a racially charged and violent South,” Obama said.
Cosby was born in Mathews County. “I love the South,” he has said. “Call me a Southern writer and I wear that badge proudly.”
“King of Ashes” (Pine & Cedar/Flatiron Books, 352 pgs., $28.99)
In “King of Ashes,” Cosby examines a family torn apart and efforts to try to put it back together in the quiet Virginia town of Jefferson Run. The main character, a wealthy investment manager in Atlanta with a lavish lifestyle, learns his father has been in a mysterious car accident and is in a coma. He returns home to protect his family from a gang.
The novel debuted No. 9 on the New York Times bestselling fiction list and is being developed into a television series by Netflix, Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Barack and Michelle Obama’s media company Higher Ground.
Two of Cosby’s earlier books also are being adapted. “Razorblade Tears” is scheduled to be a Paramount movie with Jerry Bruckheimer producing, while “All the Sinners Bleed” is planned as a nine-episode Netflix series about the first Black sheriff of a small-town who tries to stop a serial murderer who kills in the name of God.
“Razorblade Tears” was on Obama’s summer reading list in 2022 and “All the Sinners Bleed” was on his 2023 list.
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The other books on Obama’s 2025 list include “Mark Twain” by Ron Chernow, “The Book of Records” by Madeleine Thien, “Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, “Rosarita” by Anita Desai, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones, “A Marriage at Sea” by Sophie Elmhirst, “Audition” by Katie Kitamura, “Who is Government?” by Michael Lewis, and “The Sirens’ Call” by Chris Hayes.
Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com
