Razorblade Tears by AS Cosby. Not My Usual Genre but a success nonetheless!

Grit, grief, and redemption.

Synopsis

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 his father was a criminal. 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.

Audiobook review

5 stars and praise for Adam Lazarre-White for bringing that story to life with his deep voice!

This isn’t my usual genre and I confess that I picked it after seeing so many great reviews and prizes for that book. And I am so glad I did!

At its core, this is the story of two fathers—both ex-cons—seeking revenge for the death of their sons. But very quickly, it becomes clear they’re not just going up against one man… and honestly, I had no idea how this story would end as the odds were stacked against them.

Ike has done everything he could to redeem himself from his criminal past. He’s built a business, employs other ex-cons, takes care of his people, his wife… he’s trying, really trying, to be better.

So it takes a lot to pull him into Buddy Lee’s revenge mission. But once he will topple over, my god, he will be brilliant, ruthless and very impressive!

Ike is easy to like.

Buddy Lee, on the other hand is an acquired taste. He’s an alcoholic, living alone, rough around the edges. But he has his own kind of charm, and little by little, he does grow on you.

But it’s more than a revenge story.

It’s also about growth, acceptance, and facing your own failures.

As Ike and Buddy Lee go on their violent journey, they meet people who were part of their sons’ lives—and are forced to confront the truth they refused to accept before. That being gay is not a choice. That it’s not something you can “fix.”

And that realization comes too late.

They now have to live with the regret of not having been more accepting, more present, more loving when it actually mattered.

This is also a friendship story because there is nothing like burying a body together to forge unbreakable bonds!

The portraying of the characters was extremely well done and AS Cosby gave us flawed but greater than life morally grey heroes to follow. . I couldn’t help picturing Ike as Denzel Washington and Buddy Lee as Woody Harrelson during their whole war path.

This book is raw, gritty, dark, and intense.

There’s never a dull moment—fights, gunshots, explosions—it all played in my head like a movie in full technicolor. I just wanted that book to be made into a movie.

I genuinely have nothing negative to say about this story and I already know that I will read other books by AS Cosby.

Thanks for reading.

Sophie