 Hang around to the end of the video for your chance to win a hardcover copy of The Chalkman by CJ Tudor. Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we're talking about a book that has been hyped up that has been, it's just been everywhere. SA Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland. This book, for those of you who just like to click on here and find out whether or not I liked it or not, absolutely. This is one of the best books that I have read all year and one of the best crime novels I have read ever. Period. Hands down. If you want to know what other crime novelists I enjoy, I would say probably Lawrence Block. His Matthew Scutter series was really good. John D. Macdonald, I liked all of his stuff if that's considered crime, I'm not sure. Thomas Harris. I guess that's more thriller, but this book should appeal to almost everyone, I would say. I'm sitting here trying to think of anyone that it would not appeal to, and I'm coming up blank. But this novel revolves around a bug or bow guard. He is a wheel man. He is very talented. Think gone in 60 seconds, but good. That's what you're dealing with here. There's a heist, there's revenge, there's all different kinds of wonderful stuff in this book. Once again, when I enjoy a book, it is really hard for me to talk about it. Usually I just end up sitting here and repeating myself over and over again. I'm going to try and give you a little bit more this time. I'm still learning, even after 11 years, I'm still learning how to do this review thing. What I like most about the book is the characters, bug, Kia, even Ronnie to some extent. The bad guys were hella dynamic. I really, really enjoyed that aspect of it. That they weren't just one layer, one level kind of deal. They were also terrifying. This type of villain is the type that really upsets me, that really bothers me. Even though I write a lot about the supernatural, it's humanity. Humans are the real monsters. That's what you get here. There are so many climactic scenes in this book. It is a huge set piece. I hear it's being made into a movie. I cannot wait to see it. I hope they do it exactly like the book. I can't see them improving on this book. That's how good the book is. Now, after that, there's the pacing. I blew right through this book. In fact, I listened to it on Audible, not Audible, I'm sorry, Scribe. If you want a free 30-day trial of Scribe, you can click down in the doobly-doo, I'll leave that link down there. I get a free month, you get a free month. Everybody's happy, but I blew right through this. This is one of those books I never wanted to stop listening to, never wanted to stop reading. I read it during my walks. I read it when I was at home, I read it when I was playing Candy Crush, I read it all the time. In fact, I went out while I was playing Dark Souls. I was bad at the game anyway. I was even worse because I couldn't pay attention because there was such great stuff going on in the book. Cosby has this flair for dialogue. If I always look for character pacing and dread in horror novels, in crime, I look for character pacing and dialogue because these people, what you're focusing on are the characters. The dialogue has to be believable also. So I would say that's part of character also. But anyways, let me have my list. As far as the dialogue is concerned, there are some very hilarious moments. There are some very poignant moments. There are some great action lines. I wouldn't call them one-liners, but there's some great stuff in here, especially from Bug, Beauregard, whatever you want to call them. I think the thing that I appreciated the most about this book was Bug's internal conflict. He doesn't want to be like his father, and that was probably the best part of the book for me, was that struggle. Him trying to not become this man that he knows he is destined or he feels he is destined to become and him fighting that. There's a line in the book that is repeated several times that gave me chills the first time I heard it. A man can't be two kinds of beasts. I don't want to go any farther than that, because I don't want to spoil anything for you. But that's one of the most poignant lines in it. And listening to the interview at the end of the audiobook, I'm not sure if it's in the back of the hardcover or the paperback or any of that, but there's an interview with SA Cosby at the end of the audiobook. I highly recommend you check this out. Whether you get it on Scribe or Audible doesn't matter. Check it out in an audiobook if for no other reason for that interview. SA Cosby, if you see this, let us know down there. Or if anybody has a hard copy of the book, please let us know whether or not the interview is in that copy of the book. If it is, I'll pin your comment. Or if it's not, the first person to let me know, I'll pin. But he's talking about he got the line from his grandfather. I believe it was. I have to go back and listen to it. I've been sitting on this book and thinking about it for a while. I finished it well over a month ago. I've been sitting here thinking about it, wondering if it's as good as I thought it was. Because usually when a book is over-hyped, I tend to not like it. Just based on that is like nothing can live up to the hype. But this time, believe the hype, at least as far as I'm concerned. The character development's on point, the pacing's fantastic. There's never a dull moment. There's always something going on. From page, well, from chapter one on, there is something going on. And it has huge set pieces, huge action sequences. The final, I guess I want to call it, the final fight was absolutely epic. I had a lot of fun with that one. So yeah, fantastic book, easily one of my favorites of the year. My favorite crime novel of all time right now. Who knows who will unseat it? Maybe Cosby will unseat it with his next one. Let's stop here. Anyways, if you'd like to win a copy of CJ Tudor's The Chalkman, give the time signature. And for a lazy homebody, time signature is the time that I start talking about the book. It can also be the time, you just type out the time, like one minute, 20 seconds, or one minute, colon, 20. The time I start talking about the book, any time signature between the time I start talking about the book to the time that I stop talking about the book is the time signature. So just give me on your screen that time signature. Just type that out into an email and shoot it to Edward Lorne at gmail.com. The name of this channel, Edward, l-o-r-n at gmail.com to enter to win a copy of The Chalkman. So have you read Blacktop Wasteland by Essay Cosby? If you have, let me know down there in the comment section, whether or not you loved it, whether or not you hated it. If you loved or hated it, tell me why you loved it or hated it. I would especially like to hear from people who are like, man, this is okay. Or that have absolutely no feelings about it whatsoever. I would love to hear from you, especially with this one, because I can see people hating it. Well, not really, but I mean, I can see a certain type of person hating this. But everyone else, I see loving it. So if you were meh about it, I'd love to hear from you especially. But yeah, leave all that stuff down there in the doobly-doo so we can have a discussion. Explain yourselves so I can explain myself so we can talk about it. Debate, discussion, all that good stuff. But anyways, until next time, I have an E, you have an U. This has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye.