Secret Mall Apartment and Other Dives

Okay, this is my new favorite documentary:

https://www.impawards.com/2025/secret_mall_apartment.html

Trailer here:  LINK

Available on Netflix

"In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside a busy mall and lived there for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than a prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for all involved."

Ahem.  They were eight Rhode Island artists, led by Mike Townsend, who had been living and working in cheap slum housing (haven't we all...) all of which was knocked down and replaced by the Providence Place Mall and Marketplace.  To quote Townsend, 

"the only mantra they [the developers] have is if you see a space that’s underdeveloped, you have a God-given responsibility to develop it. And it was basically like having a complete stranger be like, “We’ve been thinking about it, and we think we want to knock your house down and make it a parking lot, if it’s cool with you.”"...

"Oh, our actual home? Oh, yeah, they [BLEEP] leveled that. They came in with bulldozers and cranes and knocked that sucker flat... I’m like, “Oh… Really? Game on.”"

Back when the Mall etc. was being built, Townsend had noticed "an accidental room–a remainder left over by the long division of the mall’s architecture" in the guts of the mall, only accessible by crawling up inside the walls of the mall. 

So... while their homes and studios were gone forever, this room, this underdeveloped space, was there, and no one knew about it but them.  After all, they had a God-given responsibility to develop it, and they did.  (Wait until you see how they moved the furniture in.)  

*****

Squatting is artful expression?  Sounds like a bunch of homeless trespassers

- Comment on a website about SMA.

I disagree.  

For one thing, Townsend's a hell of a good artist:  starting at 23:08 on the video are the sculptures he built in the tunnel under the railroad tracks (another hidden space) that are... haunting, to put it mildly. 

Secondly, while we live in a country that remembers with pride homesteaders and explorers, mountain men and hunters... there's no free space left to do any of that in.  Every scrap of land in this country is owned and controlled by somebody: private citizens, city/county/state/federal governments, Native American tribes, corporations.    

BTW, most farms in America are "family farms" - but as you can see, the top 4%(which earn $1 million+ and are structured like corporations) account for most of the production.  

And if you're homeless - OMG.  There's no place for the homeless to go, which gets hugely ironic when a city/corporate deal knocks down 32 acres of urban shops and housing to build a mall, without making any arrangements for relocating the people who used to live there. Oops! You're out! Good luck finding a new place to live! And how dare you hang around here and muck up our new upscale image?  

Similar stuff's happening here, too. The Sioux Falls City Council decided to build a Convention Center downtown, and in order to do that demolished the Sioux Falls Department of Social Services (DSS) building, moving it to a new, consolidated "One Stop" building way out on the perimeter, hard to get to for people who don't own a car and/or are disabled. 

Now the idea was that a Convention Center will bring in lots of revenue, decrease crime, and get rid of the pesky homeless who live on the river in the summer.  I find this hilarious, because conventions generally come with an increase of crime, especially prostitution, theft, assaults, DUIs, etc. After all, one of the major reasons people go to conventions is to get away from their home territory and let their hair down, not to mention their pants. Why do you think Grindr breaks down every time a convention hits a town? Look it up.  

And the idea that you can go out into the wilderness and live off the land - a favorite fantasy, BTW, of inmates and I don't blame them a bit - Well, you can't.  What wilderness? You can't even pull over to the side of the road in your car and crash out anymore, which is what my parents did when we used to travel cross country in the 1960s. Some law enforcement personnel is going to stop and ask you what you're doing and how intoxicated you are.  There is no more homesteading.  And even in the Alaskan wilderness, if you go out and build a cabin miles from anyone anywhere...  well, if the government finds it, they'll take it down.

Now let's talk rent: A 2 bedroom apartment in Providence, Rhode Island ran around $570+ in 1994, but then again, minimum wage was $4.25/hr = $170 a week = $680 a month.  That leaves $110 for food, clothing, utilities, etc.  Not much to actually live on, was it?  

Same when I was sharing a 4 bedroom house (old, with cockroaches, in what was basically a slum) with a bunch of artists in Atlanta back in 1973 - rent ran around $400 a month, while minimum wage was $1.60/hr = $64 a week = $256 a month.  You damn well better share to split the rent.  

BTW, we turned the place into a 6 bedroom simply by making every room except the bathroom, kitchen, and living room a bedroom.  Mine was the back porch, which had wrap-around windows and a gas space heater I lit with a match. I loved it - my sanctuary, where I wrote like a maniac, read like an opium addict, dreamed... oh, how I dreamed...  And with six of us (not to mention sleepovers), there was always someone available for talking, dreaming, drinking, laughing...   

So I'm all in favor of survival.  No one was using that room that was so well hidden that the mall administration and security guards themselves didn't know it was there. No harm, no foul in my book. Because if you're not born rich, you've got to be creative to stay alive in this world. 

Especially if you're becoming an artist. It takes a lot of work, obsession, talking, arguing, partying, debating, cooperating, and more work to get from the dream to the reality.  Every city has had and still has its neighborhood.  Some are more famous than others:  Left Bank!  Montmartre!  Greenwich Village!  Chelsea!  Florence!  Soho!  Tribeca!  Little Five Points!  And so many more.  

There's a reason Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème of starving artists and their muses has been translated into dozens of languages, made into movies, operas, musicals, etc. Because right now, there are a group of artists in your city that are living in a run-down section of town, working crap jobs and staying up all night to do the work to become their dream... Whether in a slum or a house or a Secret Mall Apartment.

I hope you enjoy it. I sure did. Both the documentary, and in real life.  

Main Character Energy

 I have mentioned Not Always Right here before. It is a website where people anonymously report terrible encounters with customers.  I recently noticed a phrase there I want to discuss.  They have hashtags, what librarians would call subject headings: Hotels, Adorable Children, Revolting, Creative Solutions, etc.

The one that caught my eye was Main Character Energy, which they apparently used as early as 2010.   Merriam-Webster defines it as "an informal Internet expression for self-assured bearing or behavior. The phrase is used both to compliment self-confidence as well as criticize its excesses."

I am interested in those excesses, which is how Not Always Right uses it. I see it as the sense that you are the most important person in the room, or even the only one.  

The Not Always Right anecdote that inspired this column involved an older couple who ran into a woman.  Their huge car suffered little damage while the woman was trapped in her subcompact.  While the paramedics were trying to rescue her with the jaws of life the couple demanded they stop to help them find their photo album. It was clearly more important than their victim's life because it had their vacation pictures. 

Fireman: “Ma’am, do you have a concussion?”

Other Driver’s Wife: “What? No?”

Fireman: *Holds up a heavy piece of equipment.* “Want one?”

How does this relate to writing?  Well, as I have said before, every character in your story should want something.  But the way they go about trying to get it helps distinguish good guys from the not-so-good.

I have said many times that what part of what makes Elmore Leonard so good is that all of his characters think they are the heroes of the story. Especially the ones who ain't.

One of the best examples of MCE  I know is in Donald E. Westlake's novel Drowned Hopes.  In it the luckless thief John Dortmunder gets a visit from his ex-prison cellmate, Tom Jimson, who wants to get the swag from  bank robbery, currently in a flooded valley.  He wants our hero's help in blowing up a dam to do it.  When Dortmunder objects...

"You see, Al," Tom explained, and gestured at the sweet valley spread out defenseless below them,  "those aren't real people down there. Not like ME. Not even like you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. If I go hungry three, four days, you know, not one of those people down there is gonna get a bellyache. And when the water comes down on them some night pretty soon, I'M not gonna choke at all. I'm gonna be busy digging up my money."

So Dortmunder (who definitely does NOT exude Main Character Energy) spends the rest of the book trying to find a way to get Tom's money without killing hundreds of people.  Because he's a thief but not a homicidal lunatic.

I remember being surprised at a writer's conference when someone defined evil as selfishness.  Well, yeah.  Exactly.  If I'm the main character, why shouldn't I be selfish?

So when you are trying to define your characters MCE is one more tool in your workbox.

One in Six

A few days before this post went live, Queer Crime Writers released “One in Six is Not Equity: The State of Queer Representation in Mystery Anthologies,” the results of a survey of twenty-seven crime fiction anthologies published in 2024, and the conclusion is similar to their survey of anthologies published in 2023:

LGBTQ+ writers are underrepresented.

I don’t think that conclusion can be disputed.

“Only six of [the twenty-seven surveyed] anthologies contained a story by a queer author.” That means “the percentage of anthologies with at least one queer story was 22%.” Out of 304 stories, only eight (2.2%) were written by queer writers.

I do wonder, though, what the results would be if the survey included anthologies from a wider range of publishers. QCW tallied data from twenty-seven anthologies released by publishers included on the Mystery Writers of America’s Approved Publishers List.

Anyone who writes short crime fiction knows there are (or were in 2024) many anthology publishers not on the MWA’s Approved Publishers List.

I lack access to every mystery anthology published in 2024, so I examined a different subset of anthologies: those published in 2024 that I edited or co-edited.

QCW “defined an anthology as any short story work featuring more than two authors participating in the book.” By QCW’s definition, I edited or co-edited nine anthologies published in 2024, some released by publishers that might be on MWA’s Approved Publishers List and some that definitely are not.

Of those nine, four (or 44.44%) include stories by queer writers.

The anthologies contained 123 stories, six of which were written by queer writers, representing 4.88% of all the stories.

BREAKDOWN BY TYPES OF ANTHOLOGIES

Lumping all the anthologies together does not lead to a clear understanding of how the anthologies acquired stories and how that may have impacted the totals, and this is important.

Of the nine anthologies I edited or co-edited, I was not included in the selection process for two of them (an open call and a limited open call); the sponsoring organizations made the selections. There are no stories by queer writers in these anthologies.

Three were open call or limited open call and I, alone or with a co-editor, selected the stories. Two (66%) contained stories by queer writers. Two of forty stories (5% of the total) were by queer writers.

Four were invitation-only and I, alone or with a co-editor, selected the stories. Two (50%) contained stories by queer writers. Four of thirty stories (13.33% of the total) were by queer writers.

Five queer writers are represented in these totals. One contributed two stories. The other four each contributed a single story.

WHAT RAW DATA DOESN’T REVEAL

What raw data doesn’t reveal is that personal relationships and past experience impact writers’ opportunities. Every queer writer published in these anthologies—whether their story was written to invitation or selected from the slush pile—is someone I knew and worked with long before these nine anthologies were ever conceived, and they are all writers I hope to work with again in the future.

Why? For the same reasons I like to work with any writer: They produce quality work, it’s delivered on time and meets the guidelines, and they are easy to work with throughout the editing process.

CONCLUSION

I wish I had something pithy to say here, but I don’t.

The data I shared from my own projects is no more and no less valid than that shared by the QCW, and it leads to a similar conclusion, especially when considering the number of stories by queer writers considered as a percentage of all the stories surveyed—2.2% vs. 4.88%—LGBTQ+ writers are underrepresented.

So, read “One in Six is Not Equity: The State of Queer Representation in Mystery Anthologies.”

Then ask yourself: As an editor, as a writer, and as a reader, what can you do so that in the future, when QCW releases their annual surveys, underrepresentation is not a foregone conclusion.

* * *

“Collateral Damage” was published in Black Cat Weekly #231. “Drawn to Love” was published in the July 16, 2026, issue of Micromance. “Between the Covers” was published in KissMet Quarterly: I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.

---

Groundhog Day: Do you need to do it again?

Today is Groundhog Day, a peculiarly American holiday—or is it? It evolved from the medieval Christian celebration of Candlemas, to which weather prognostications involving the European hedgehog were added in Germany. When Germans emigrated to Western Pennsylvania, according to the website of the Punxutawney Groundhog Club, they chose a similar hibernating animal from among the local fauna. The first such festival in Punxutawney, PA recorded in the newspaper took place in 1886. Does the eponymous groundhog, Punxutawney Phil, ever really see his shadow? If he does, do six more weeks of winter follow? Does it matter? Does anyone care? The multitudes who flock to Punxutawney on February 2nd every year are surely folks who seize any excuse to join a crowd, make a noise, and enjoy whatever refreshments are on offer.

Since 1991, the term Groundhog Day has come to mean more than an annual weather prediction wrapped in a fur coat for all seasons. Bill Murray's portrayal of a cynical reporter who gets trapped in a time loop in Punxutawney became a movie classic, and his dilemma has become a metaphor for having to do something—in particular, to do it badly or to make mistakes—over and over until you get it right.

It's not much of a leap to the idea that there's something wrong with doing anything once. In our own field, I've heard numerous discussions in which some writers claim that if you're really a writer, you write every day...or if you're really a writer, you always want to write...or if you're really a writer, you'll never want to stop writing for good. If that's true, how do you explain Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, which more readers than not consider the best novel of the twentieth century? It's the only novel she wrote. Wasn't Harper Lee really a writer? (I refuse to consider the unedited version that was published when she was 102 and imo incompetent to say no a second novel.) Of course she was.

In any endeavor, "doing it again" is considered the seal of approval on anything you do once, whether it's visiting Paris in the spring, whale watching off Cape Cod, sailing in the Caribbean, skiing in the Alps, or whatever you happen to think is exciting or romantic or adventurous. "This is wonderful!" you say. "We have to do it again." This sets you up for disappointment and a sense of failure, or at least a nagging feeling that you've missed out on the best that life has to offer. Because life is full of new experiences, as well as time-consuming challenges and catastrophes. You never do get back to Paris or the Alps, or not in spring or skiing season.

The older I get, the more I let go of preconceptions, ambitions, and burning desires that seemed immutable when I was younger. Last month I wrote about not having to live forever. Today, Groundhog Day reminds me that the things I have done once are sufficient unto themselves. I detest the marketing phrase "making memories." When you're there, wherever it is, be there. But I do have some perfect jewels that are my memories of experiences I have had once: visiting Timbuktu in 1965, camping in Yosemite in 1975. Not only could these experiences not be recreated, but Timbuktu has changed in 60 years, as has Yosemite—or camping in Yosemite—in 50 years. The world is not so welcoming; the wild is not so wild. I settled for a tame environment, ie a hotel pool, for swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. The dolphin kissed me on the lips and swam between my legs. It was enough for both of us.

Then there are physical experiences that I never would have mastered. I'm glad I did them once.

Skiing: the smell of cold andevergreen, blue shadows on snow and white birch, the crunch of snow as I told myself over and over to keep my weight on the downhill ski. I made it down the novice slope triumphantly. Riding a horse: okay, three times: once at age 6, once at age 23 with a Western saddle, once in my 50s with an English saddle, never faster than a walk, thank God, even when we unexpectedly met a deer on the trail through the brush. Just enough. Flying a plane: I logged 30 hours in a Cessna 150. The “once” would have been when I soloed, but I had to quit before that happened. I confess I was relieved.

A few more experiences that could only have happened once:

Visiting Narita-san Temple in Japan, ten minutes by train from the Narita Airport that serves Tokyo. We were on our way to my son's wedding in Manila. A French artist friend and his Brazilian wife turned our dreary stopover into a magical side trip. It was February: almond blossoms and light snow were falling.

Chipping rock for garnets on a mountain in Vermont in 1950. I was six years old, at summer camp, and only remembered this recently. This is definitely illegal now; I don't know about then.

An English country house weekend fifty years ago. No, there was no murder. Yes, I fell in love. I eventually got six poems, three flash stories, and, um, a great deal of emotional growth out of it. I didn’t need to do it again. I didn't even need to write a novel.

Do you have a memorable experience you've always said you have to do again? On reflection, can you leave it at that memorable once?

Theft by Inches

How to Steal a Heritage

City folk sometimes profess strange views of country life. My Bostonian boss was invited deer hunting. He showed up packing a snub-nose revolver. His Vermont hosts strained mightily to keep straight faces.

Country living can be bucolic, but it’s not all Bambi and Peter Cottontail. No, there’s no Dick Hickock or Perry Smith hiding amid the cornstalks, no human hunt à la Deliverance. But crimes occur, skulduggery found only in farms and fields and forests.

Rustlin’ still occurs and sometimes the booty is cattle, sometimes not. Prize lambs or show fowl (look up crested black Polish), cultivated marijuana, and even milk have been targeted, often raided not by horsemen, but truck drivers with semi tractors.

One of the saddest thefts occurred between the village of Arlington, Indiana, and the county seat of Rushville. A family lived at the end of a long country lane, far enough they wouldn’t be disturbed by traffic along US Highway 52. The entrance was guarded by two giant sentinels, a pair of walnut trees nearing their third century.

After a vacation, the family returned home. Those beautiful walnuts, older than our nation, were missing, sawn to their roots. Monetary value, well into six figures. Sentimental value, priceless.

Turned on a sort of spit, blades shave paper-thin peelings from ancient hardwoods. Their end use includes veneers in entertainment centers and furniture, a killing for the bad guys. For the family to lose an irreplaceable heirloom of their homestead… you can imagine the pain. To my knowledge, the crooks were never identified.

How to Steal a Farm

Usually generations of farm neighbors find an accord and are often kind and supportive, especially in time of need. But some neighbors are… What’s the polite expression? Apertures-of-the-Anus?

Farming and ranching are risky professions. Crops may fail two, three, or more years in a row. Cattle, hogs, even chickens may be struck by disease. A big city banker could foreclose on that recent loan. And yet it was a life my father hated to leave.

When I was a teen, we left the last of our historical homestead, six generations on a land grant signed by Andrew Jackson. We moved to fifteen acres, fields and pasture, orchard, barn, and ancient farmhouse. Our livestock was minimal and Dad rented the acreage rather than continue farming.

All went well for a few years, but one day he noticed the east fence was down and the next day, missing altogether. No problem, no risk of losing livestock. Neither we nor the neighbor used the field for pasture.

John Deere cornbine

Cultivated land develops an imprinted ‘memory’ of sorts. Centuries of plowing compress and expand soil in a pattern. Soon, Father noticed land along the fencerow had narrowed a full furrow, say, sixteen inches. Funny thing, that strip of grass disappeared entirely the following spring. Dad raised an eyebrow, but thus far, our furrows remained intact.

Because of crop rotation, the neighbor switched plantings. Dad now believed cornrows were missing. When he confronted the transgressor, the man laughed.

So Dad had a quiet word with the sheriff, who claimed he could do nothing. “What about trespassing?” Dad asked.

Sheriff chuckled. “Unlikely. A prosecutor will never waste his time on something like that. If you’re thinking about suing, you’re talking big bucks for a good lawyer.”

Word got back to the neighbor that our efforts to oust him had proved futile. But there was a larger problem. If the neighbor continued to occupy our land, he might be able to grandfather a claim called adverse possession. Defend it or lose it.

Dad fumed. But an idea struck.

Next spring, he watched an emboldened neighbor cut deeper into our fields. Dad simply observed while the man leveled furrows with a disc harrow, planted corn, and fertilized it.

The corn grew tall, exceeding the height of a grown man. Meanwhile, Dad had another quiet talk with a professional, a lean fellow in a fedora. He also made arrangements with a local company.

Over an August weekend when most farmers attended the local Pioneer Engineers Club exhibition, the professional visited the fields, leaving behind small ribbons and magnetized stakes.

The company Father visited– a fence company– strung barbed wire through tall corn based on markers left by the surveyor.

The neighbor was irate. He stormed over to our house and demanded to see our father. Mother made him wait.

Dad was– picture this– six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds. Our neighbor… wasn’t. For the first time, he seemed to realize his predicament.

Still, he managed a snarl. “You built that damn fence on my property.”

“Not according to the surveyor. You stole upwards of an acre.”

The neighbor shouted something about dung-of-bovidae. “I didn’t know I stepped over the fence line. Why didn’t you be neighborly and tell me?” Everyone stared at him in disbelief. “Well, you could have let me harvest my corn.”

“Our corn,” said Dad.

My parents had no further trouble from the neighbor. But have you ever imagined land rustlin’?

Simsubs: Yes or No?

   

NOTE: The topic of this post will probably be of interest only to writers of short stories--I doubt other people would even know what we mean by "simsubs." Even writers and those who DO know what we mean might be tired of the subject by now. But, because of the many recent discussions about it in some writer's groups I belong to . . .

Let's talk about simultaneous submissions. It's an issue that seems to pop up every year or two, with strong opinions being voiced from both sides, and--as always--most juries are still out on whether simsubs are good or bad. The simple question remains: Should I submit my story to more than one market at the same time?

I think this most recent rekindling of interest is because response times seem to be growing longer and longer for the few publications still left out there that publish short mystery stories--which is mostly what I. and friends of mine, write. One market in particular--Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine--is known to take around a year to respond to most submissions. (Some time ago it seemed to have dwindled to around 11 months, and now it's back to 13 or 14 months between submission and response.) A year, plus or minus, is a long time for a story to sit around in a queue, completely out of circulation, and when you consider the fact that your story can end up rejected after all that time, you might be sorely tempted to send that story someplace else while you're waiting. A hedging, shall we say, of bets.

So . . . should you do it?

Definitions and rules

First, for those who don't know, a simultaneous submission is the act of sending of the same short-story manuscript to more than one market at the same time--and not to be confused with "multiple submission," which means sending more than one story to the same market. The simsub practice can obviously be a good thing because it improves your odds of a timely acceptance. But it's also risky. If more than one place decides to accept your story, presto!--you've got two dates to the prom, which is never a good situation.

Even if only one of the two markets accepts your story, you must still notify the other market to tell them your story's no longer available for consideration, and that withdrawal can in itself be irritating to an editor. More on that later.

The upside

Let's break all this down a bit. On the plus side of the ledger, if you simultaneously submit a story, (1) you'll almost certainly sell it sooner, and (2) the risk is small because the chances are small that you'll receive two acceptances for the same story at around the same time. And hey, if you wind up with an acceptance from the first market and you have to withdraw an as-yet-unaccepted story from consideration at the second market, it's certainly possible that the second editor won't mind a bit. Maybe she hasn't even gotten around to considering your story yet.

Still thinking positively, and being realistic, simsubs usually result in one of two things happening: Either you get a rejection from both markets or you get an acceptance from one and a rejection from the other. Obviously, neither of those situations presents a problem. All is well with the world.

The downside

On the other hand, the possibilities are: (1) the worst could happen, and both markets could send you an acceptance letter--and one of them will have to be told OOPS--Sorry, that story's already sold. And (2) you might get an acceptance from Market #1 and when you notify #2 that it's no longer available, they might've already spent time considering your story, in which case they won't be pleased that you've wasted their time. They probably won't tell you that--you might never find it out--but you also might've unintentionally made an enemy. So, either of those situations could mean your name is now on a  particular editor's sh*t list, and the * doesn't stand for or.

Another point. Some places will say, in their guidelines, that simultaneous submissions are permitted. That means you'll NEVER get in trouble with simsubs, right?

Wrong. Even if they do say it, they won't like it. No editor likes simultaneous submissions. If you withdraw a story from them in midstream--and believe me, they'll probably know why you're withdrawing it--there's a fair chance they won't be happy hikers.

Conclusions

As I have said before at this blog, I think the risks of simultaneous submissions outweigh the advantages. That's my opinion only, but I do believe that. Since we know that withdrawals can be annoying to editors, and the last thing I want to to do is annoy an editor, I just don't do it. I'm annoying enough as it is.

My personal "bad" experience with simultaneous submissions is a bit unusual. What happened to me is that I once submitted a story to a place (Strand Magazine, in my case) that is known to never respond at all unless it's an acceptance, and after waiting many months without getting a response, I assumed that story must've been rejected, and I sent it elsewhere (AHMM, in my case). Then I was told by the first publication that they in fact did want to buy my story, so I dutifully notified (confessed to) the second market that I had sent them a story that I thought had been rejected elsewhere but had not. Actually, this kind of misfire happened to me twice, with these same two publications. Both times, the editor of the second market--Linda Landrigan--told me there was no problem, and allowed me to easily withdraw my story so it could be published at the first market--but it still gave me a terrible feeling, and the second time it happened I resolved never to do it again. Since that point, I have never submitted a story to two different places at the same time, and I have never submitted a story anywhere unless I know for certain that that story is no longer under consideration elsewhere. Better safe than sorry.

Questions

How do you feel about this whole issue? Do you submit simultaneously, or not? Is it an always thing? A sometimes thing? Only with certain markets? If you haven't done it already, would you or wouldn't you, in the future? Is it really worth the risk? Any war stories, about this kind of thing? Please let me know, in the comments section below. I'd also love to hear the opinions of editors, if any of you decision-makers are reading this.

I assure you, by the way, that SleuthSayers is the only place to which I submitted this post.  

King of Ashes

 As I've written before, SA Cosby has replaced Ken Bruen as the first crime author I read in a given year. That's probably going to slow down unless he's got another one coming out this year. (Shame on me for not checking.) So, instead of Jack Taylor, I get to read about a side of Virginia we never see. Set in fictional Jefferson City, Cosby establishes his setting as lying near the real city of Roanoke, in the southwestern part of the state. This region has little in common with the Tidewater, Chesapeake Bay, or the urban sprawl of Richmond and the DC suburbs. It has more in common with West Virginia, just on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

We open with Roman Carruthers, a financial mogul in Atlanta who makes money magic happen for all manner of athlete, musician, and actor. We briefly see Roman in his element, living in Buckheads, approaching his craft like a science, and contracting the services of a dominatrix to relax him before a major meeting or decision. Like you do.

Then he gets a phone call. His father is in a coma after being hit by a train. Roman flies home after a five-year absence to help with the family business. A crematorium. His sister Neveah runs the shop with her father and is pretty much in charge when we meet her. Brother Danta...

Well, he's why Dad is in a coma. And then there's the matter of their mother, who disappeared. Their father caught her cheating. She disappeared. When the wife of a crematorium operator disappears, it's almost impossible to conclude what happened to her and why there is no body.

But the present situation, someone pushing the elder Carruthers' car into an oncoming freight train's path, ties back to Dante. By his own description, he is the family disappointment. So Roman sets about to fix this. Dante is in debt to some very bad characters named Torrent and Tagent, both sociopaths, and both ruling by fear. Roman works his way into their inner circle by offering to make them money instead of straight up paying Dante's debt. Things spiral from there.

Roman uses his talents both to bring in money for those Dante owes and to set Torrent and Tangent's people against each other and their enemies against them. Complicating matters is a woman Roman meets at a party: Jealousy. Jealousy, or Jae as she calls herself, works for the mayor. She's also Torrent and Tanget's sister. Roman falls for her, but he's out to kill her brothers. It's as messy as messy can be. 

Roman is, of course, the center of this mess. While trying to save his siblings, he becomes the reverse of The Wire's Stringer Bell. Whereas Bell used his money to get out of the game and into respectability, Roman starts out respectable and spirals into the game. 

Over all, this is what Cosby does best. He mixes Southern life, race, poverty, and the disruption of crime into a mile-a-minute tale. The crematory makes for an interesting backdrop and a plot point in several threads. However, it doesn't quite live up to his masterpieces, Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears. But then not every Beatles album is Sgt. Pepper's or every Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. Just as reaching for those bands off your streaming service still delivers great music, so does pulling SA Cosby from the shelf.