In S.A. Cosby’s latest thriller, “King of Ashes,” a successful and fast-living financial adviser is called suddenly back to the small Virginia hometown he fled, where his family runs the local crematory and his father is in a coma stemming from a car crash that may not be as accidental as it seems.Cosby himself is from a small Virginia town, and on this week’s podcast he discusses the allure of homecoming, the tricky emotional terrain of complicated families and the reason he keeps revisiting the rural South in his fiction.“Once manufacturing moved out of these places, these rural places, there was nothing left to replace it. But crime — crime is America’s great secret industry. It’s our great secret empire. And when the legitimate businesses leave, crime steps in the fold. Nature abhors a vacuum, so crime steps in to fill that place. And I wanted to talk about cities like that."
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Book Club: Let's Talk About 'The Safekeep'
MJ Franklin, who hosts the Book Review podcast’s monthly book club, says that whenever someone asks him, “What should I read next?,” Yael van der Wouden’s “The Safekeep” has become his go-to recommendation. So he was particularly excited to discuss the novel on this week’s episode.Set in the Netherlands in 1961, “The Safekeep” is one of those books it’s best not to know too much about, as part of its delight is discovering its secrets unspoiled. As the reviewer for The New York Times coyly wrote in her piece about the book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024: “What a quietly remarkable book. I’m afraid I can’t tell you too much about it.”Here are some other books discussed in this week’s episode:“The Torqued Man,” by Peter Mann“The Little Stranger,” by Sarah Waters“Mice 1961,” by Stacey Levine“The New Life,” by Tom Crewe
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The world's top authors and critics join host Gilbert Cruz and editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the week's top books, what we're reading and what's going on in the literary world.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp
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