Having recently been blown away by Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland, I was really excited about getting stuck into Razorblade Tears. Perhaps because I was looking forward to this so much, I left it feeling slightly disappointed. That's not to say it wasn't a decent read, it just didn't quite measure up to my expectations.
The premise is an excellent one. A gay couple have been murdered and their fathers are both struggling to come to terms with the way they handled their sons' sexuality. Their relationships were strained and the damage was significant, which leaves both Buddy Lee and Ike full of guilt and a sense of failure.
Buddy Lee wants to do something about it, Ike is more concerned about maintaining his business. In the end, Buddy Lee persuades Ike that they need to go after the killers and seek their own kind of justice. It's handy that both have done spells in prison and are used to handling themselves in all kinds of situations. More helpful that Ike is about to release his alter-ego, Riot, on the world.
In order to track down the killers, they have to get past several stumbling blocks: the LGBTQ+ community is reluctant to pass on information to either the authorities or to any outsiders; there's a biker gang called Rare Breed that is involved in protecting the man behind the murders; their main lead is a lady called Tangerine who has gone into hiding in order to save her own skin; and they don't seem to like each other very much.
The journey of Ike and Buddy Lee is like many a 'buddy' story. They share one goal and their journey will be tough, but they're going to come to depend upon each other and, somewhere along the line, liking each other will creep in around the edges. They're a good team and bring the best and worst out of each other. Most importantly, they're able to work towards completing their quest by knocking down one of those stumbling blocks at a time.
All was going well until I began to disengage from around the half-way point. In some ways, this is because the action scenes took over. Much as they were well put together, the older I get, the less I want to read long sections of brutality. There's a sense of inevitability about the outcomes of each set piece and also about the ending. I don't think I was invested enough in the characters or felt they had enough to lose.
I also struggled to a lesser extent with the similes here. Unlike in Blacktop Wasteland, where they're sharp and apt, here they lacked a cutting edge. It's a small point, but an important one. Perhaps it suggests that Cosby's improvement is significant and if that upward curve is maintained, All The Sinners Bleed is going to be an absolute peach.
Not really for me, then, but if you're a lover of revenge novels or action stories, this may be right up your street.
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