Book Review – Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby – Very well-written Novel
Table of Contents
My Rating – 4 out of 5
Plot Summary – Razorblade Tears
When tragedy unites, it forms a bond like no other. A shared grief is far more potent than a shared joy – which is flitting in nature. A perfect example of when violence meets retribution and you are rooting for an Anti-Hero, you realize that this is not your run-of-the-mill story. This is the story of two bereaved fathers, whose sons (both twenty seven) have been brutally murdered, the police are making much headway and these two weren’t ideal fathers to their sons when they were alive anyway. But now, they have more than enough reason to make right – if not in life then in death.
Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee Jenkins are as different as they can get – Ike is Black, Buddy Lee is White trash and borderline racist. Both have served time behind bars and though Ike has returned to a near normal life with wife Mya and son Isiah, Buddy Lee had only son Derek to come home to. What linked them together is the fact that their sons – Isiah and Derek were madly in love with one another, got married and were living as husband-wife in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. Forget others in the society, their fathers couldn’t accept them as gay and Christine, Derek’s mom, outright rejected him!
Then, on the evening of their anniversary, both men are shot dead, and then their faces blown away – in an apparent hate crime. For this Virginia neighborhood, being gay was sacrilegious, unnatural – an anomaly or a disease one had to cure. On top of it – mixed race liaison. The far right, bigoted crowd seems to be behind it and the Police are making no headway as no one is willing to talk to them. That is when, Buddy Lee and Ike come together, to shake things up a bit, see what comes loose. In life, both of them had alienated from their sons, their own prejudices getting the better of them.
In their earlier lives, both of them had criminal associations. Ike was an enforcer for a street gang and Buddy Lee a petty criminal. Both have done their time, and have managed to keep their noses out of trouble for a considerable period of time. But to get justice for their sons? They are willing to die to make things right, since when their sons were alive, they didn’t give them a chance! What follows hereafter, is a blaze of death and destruction as two fathers embark on their journey to fatal retribution..
Conclusion – Book Review of Razorblade Tears
Told in a line or two, the story-line might seem clichéd but the treatment elevates it above the ordinary and the mundane. The violence co-exists with the touches of the poignant. The monstrous hurt of losing a child, that too an only one, to a violent crime is something that no one should have to bear. Add to it the fact that these parents have been far from perfect ones and from their own selfish bias had discriminated against their own children and now it is too late to make amends.
This book will move you, to the sublime realization that those you hold dear, may get snatched away cruelly by fate. So while you have the time and the opportunity, make right, make peace….There may never be a second chance. Read this one, for its sheer mind numbing pace, for the questions it raises, for the tragedies it unfolds. The protagonists are not saints and in this case, you wouldn’t want them to be.
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