When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.

I have nothing but respect for those who love a good supernatural thriller, but I’m personally most fascinated by thrillers that are based here in the real world. When I read S.A. Cosby’s 2021 BOTY finalist, the heart-wrenching Razorblade Tears, I thought nothing would be able to top it—but I’m here to tell you that King of Ashes, an evocative crime drama based in the American South, might be even better.

In King of Ashes, we meet Roman, a grizzled money manager tortured by his mother’s mysterious death. After his father gets in an accident, Roman comes home, only to find that things have taken a turn for the worse due to the rapidly deteriorating relationship between his young brother and a pair of spine-chilling drug lords.

King of Ashes is alluring precisely because the bad guys are human—and achingly so. It is the story of a prodigal son returning home only to mess things up. Cosby’s writing avoids easy answers and thrives in the moral gray area, turning readers on their heads and suspending their judgements in the process. This is a gritty, dazzlingly dark tale of family, love, and what happens when we dare to face the memories we’d rather leave behind.