Razorblade Tears - Outside of a Dog

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published July 6, 2021 by Flatiron Books.

ISBN:: 9781250252708
OCLC Number:: 1184238878

(1 review)

A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate …

A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.

7 editions

Elska Bee reviewed Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

Review of 'Razorblade Tears' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The exploration of grief and coming to accept their sons for who they were was a really strong aspect of this book and easily the best written. In fact the exploration of the themes of racism and homophobia is some of the best I've seen recently because of how raw and real it felt. Considering how much it's talked about between the characters, it very rarely felt preachy or like the author was lecturing you through the page which is a really good thing.

Plenty of very, very gory violence (like seriously, if you hate gore maybe skip this one) which I just don't really care about positively or negatively, though it did feel it took up more page space than it should have.

I had some issues with the writing, mostly just because there were a lot of unnecessary words and sentences on the page (i.e. over describing inconsequential …

The exploration of grief and coming to accept their sons for who they were was a really strong aspect of this book and easily the best written. In fact the exploration of the themes of racism and homophobia is some of the best I've seen recently because of how raw and real it felt. Considering how much it's talked about between the characters, it very rarely felt preachy or like the author was lecturing you through the page which is a really good thing.

Plenty of very, very gory violence (like seriously, if you hate gore maybe skip this one) which I just don't really care about positively or negatively, though it did feel it took up more page space than it should have.

I had some issues with the writing, mostly just because there were a lot of unnecessary words and sentences on the page (i.e. over describing inconsequential actions) that killed the flow every now an again. The style was mostly fine, you just have to get your head attuned to the dialect and then it's pretty easy to read. Some of the slang can make some sections a bit hard to parse but at least it's true to the characters.

It got a bit meandering at times and I considered DNFing at about the 50% mark because it felt like it was dragging its heels and that's one of the main reasons I can't rate it higher than a three. For a reasonably short book I'm honestly surprised at how slow paced it felt, which for a mystery thriller I think is not a great thing and certainly not what I was expecting going in.