Ayo Onatade is an avid reader of crime and mystery fiction. She has been writing reviews, interviews and articles on the subject for the last 12 years; with an eclectic taste from historical to hardboiled, short stories and noir films
Where does one start with Blacktop Wasteland? Not a word wasted, gritty, dark and an extraordinary opening-chapter: a prelude to a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat narrative.
Nothing in Beauregard Montage’s (aka Bug) life is going right. He owes money on his business; his kid needs dental work and he has just received a bill from his mother’s nursing home. Despite wanting to be a good father, a good husband and to provide for his children - Bug realises that he just can’t. With bills mounting, he returns to his former life of a criminal planner (and a getaway driver) – for just one last time.
He was of course the best getaway driver in Virginia; once.
Bug is a badass character, but one with a heart.
He goes from being a man who makes bad choices, to a man who has no choice but to be bad.
The plot is engaging, the characters come alive on the page, with the setting and details so richly described that you feel that you are part of the story itself.
At its core Blacktop Wasteland is a heist movie, but in book-form. Behind the burning rubber, it deals with poverty, violence, toxic masculinity - all with a devastating insight, that at times it reads as non-fiction.
In a word, essential reading for the crime fiction reader.
