RAZORBLADE TEARS by S.A. Cosby – Review

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Published by Flatiron Books on July 6 2021
Genres: Adult, Crime, Thriller
Pages: 336
Format: Finished hardcover
Source: Purchased
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The nitty-gritty: While I loved Cosby’s gritty and violent revenge scenario, I had some issues with the overall plot and dialog, ultimately making this a mixed bag for me.

That was the thing about violence. When you went looking for it you definitely were going to find it. It just wouldn’t be at a time of your own choosing. It jumped up and splattered your nice new boots before you were really ready.

Minor spoilers ahead

Razorblade Tears was a powerful and emotional read, but it turned out to be a tough one for me. I went into it expecting to love it, based on the many glowing reviews I’ve read this year, but I found myself almost dreading picking it up. This is a dark, violent revenge thriller with unappealing characters all around (there might have been two I could actually tolerate): racists and homophobes, drunks, murderers, criminals, terrible parents, cheating spouses—you name it, they’re probably in this story. Now I don’t normally have a problem with “dark” and “violent,” but something about this story just hit me the wrong way. I also had some issues with the overall plot and the details of the murder mystery, which were a bit on the convoluted side. However, I can’t deny that S.A. Cosby has written a provocative tale that forces the reader to confront some uncomfortable truths about racism and homophobia.

The story centers around two main characters: Ike is a prison-hardened Black man, who has turned his back on his violent past and now runs a respectable landscaping business. Buddy Lee is a white ex-convict whose wife divorced him while he was in prison. Buddy Lee is barely surviving, living in a trailer and drinking himself to death. The two men meet under unfortunate circumstances when their gay sons Isiah and Derek, who were married, are found dead, their shooting deaths clearly a professional hit. When the investigation into their murders stalls, Buddy Lee approaches Ike and suggests they take matters into their own hands and investigate the murders themselves. Ike is reluctant at first. He’s gone straight since prison, and he knows that tracking down a killer might drag him back into his former life of violence. And he’s right. Once Ike and Buddy Lee start questioning people in their sons’ lives, things turn nasty, fast.

The set up of Razorblade Tears is fantastic. The fact that Ike and Buddy Lee both rejected their sons when they were alive because of their sexual identity adds a poignancy and sadness to their deaths. The two men are not only distraught because they’ve lost their children, but they feel remorse over the fact that there’s nothing they can do now to make things right with them. Their emotions are truly heartbreaking, and they throw themselves into the hunt for the killer in order to combat feelings they have no idea how to handle. Little by little over the course of the story, Ike and Buddy Lee start to accept—if not fully understand—their sons’ lifestyle, but unfortunately it’s too little, too late.

I also really liked the relationship between Ike and Buddy Lee. The story plays out almost like a buddy film, with two men who are complete opposites teaming up to avenge the murder of their sons. Buddy Lee is a racist who doesn’t think he’s a racist, and at first his interactions with Ike are uncomfortable as hell. Ike ends up schooling Buddy Lee about his use of racist words and phrases, and you get the impression that Buddy Lee really does want to do the right thing by his new friend. What starts out as a tense standoff between them slowly changes into tentative friendship. Both men are emotionally scarred in different ways, and I liked the way their characters grew over the course of the story. 

But not everything worked for me, unfortunately. I found Cosby’s writing to be awkward at times, and while a lot of the dialog was well done, especially when Ike and Buddy Lee use “prison speak,” it turned into a cringey mess whenever the two started talking about their feelings. Conversations about their (surprise!) changing opinions about gay people felt unrealistic and forced, and one of them actually uses the phrase “LGBTQ+” in a sentence at one point, which honestly made me laugh. I seriously doubt someone with deeply engrained homophobic beliefs would even know what it meant, let alone utter it out loud.

Cosby adds another layer to the story with Isiah’s and Derek’s daughter Arianna, a three year old girl who is now under the custody of her grandparents, Ike and his wife Mya. Still too young to understand that her parents are dead, Arianna is more of a prop than a fully realized character, and in one of my least favorite parts of the book, she is eventually kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip between Ike and Buddy Lee and the men responsible for the hit.

Which brings me to the murders themselves. There’s quite a build-up to the truth, as Ike and Buddy Lee cut a bloody swathe through the city, and I was expecting a more interesting and believable payoff, to be honest. But the final reveal fell flat for me and just didn’t make much sense.

However, the action is exciting, and the men’s anger is a palpable force that drives the story to a thrilling conclusion. But the ending is over-the-top, and I easily predicted one of the character’s deaths by the second chapter. Many readers loved Razorblade Tears, though, so don’t let me stop you from checking it out.