Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - All the Sinners Bleed

Thrilling, mysterious and I couldn’t see any of it coming. I really enjoyed the ride. This author is someone who can weave in social commentary so beautifully with real life, gore, and small town life. He never misses. Highly recommend. The ending and whodunnit lost .25 for me because it felt not connected. But still, read this book!!!!

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bep's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

A compelling story from the perspective of a Black Southern sheriff combatting engrained historical racism and a serial killer case in tandem. I have loved all of S.A. Cosby’s books so far, and this one felt a little darker and harder particularly because of the serial killer’s

Spoiler

abuse of children and the extremely violent methods of murdering some of his associates.

The ending felt a bit rushed to me, but overall a very insightful neo-noir crime novel that I would recommend to anyone who loves this genre.

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chardkey's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

S.A. Cosby does it again. This gritty tale of race and redemption will keep you up into the night because you don't want to put it down. Titus Crown is the first black sheriff in a small southern town in Virginia. Although this is the town where he grew up, he has never felt more like an outsider when a school shooting occurs on his 1 year anniversary, he is thrust into a wicked plot and sets out to catch a killer. This book does not disappoint and will leave you wanting more.

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bookishcori's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

I’ll start with what I loved: the way Cosby writes about his home and a sense of place, about complicated people and families, about masculinity, about the underbelly of rural Virginia and the overt racism. The writing itself is truly top notch. Also the scene with Titus and his brother on the porch near the end was 😭.

Hearing an interview where Cosby shared how he chooses to write crime/thrillers that seamlessly weave in “issues” that folks may otherwise not engage with makes sense and he excels at this. It never feels forced - you know how some authors throw in random hot button topics and it is irrelevant? Not here, because he’s writing from a Southern Black man’s experience and this is reality.

But here’s the thing, I used to consume a lot of gory serial killer and police procedural media and I no longer like these storylines. This was…too much. Sociopaths, pedophilia, violence against children, flayed and tortured bodies. 🤢 The saving grace here was that all the other aspects of the story were compelling.

If you like law and order: svu, silence of the lambs, or that James Patterson book turned movie about kidnapped girls held in a basement dungeon, check this out. You’ll get more substance with the shock value.

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itsme_lori's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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realhousewifeofthelibrary's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Check content warnings, but otherwise this was amazing. No notes.

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pomoevareads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book won’t be for everyone but if you can stomach some sick gore wrapped in some captivating southern noir then Cosby’s latest crime fiction book All the Sinners Bleed might be up your alley. I had to breathe through a few parts as it was a bit much.

This book is as much about a sheriff working to be a respectable and honorable leader as it is about the town over which he tries to maintain order. A group of confederate supporters want to hold a march in town to honour a statue that seeks to bring the town back to its (racist) roots. Opposing this group is another group led by a modern church leader who wants to see the statue removed and for the town to move forward in a more harmonious community. In the midst of tension between the two groups, a shooting occurs. As a result of the shooting, Titus learns about more deaths that have been carried out in his quiet town. Titus must track down a serial killer among a group of folks who don’t all stand out.

Cosby excels at getting the reader to root for a character and presents moral issues in a meaningful way. I found his character of a Titus Crown, the first black sheriff in this small Virginian town, to be well built and interesting. Titus has his own demons which we learn about slowly throughout the novel. Many side characters are introduced and keeping notes helped me keep them straight.

The pacing of the novel starts out a bit slow for a Cosby novel leaving me unsure what to expect but rest assured the action and suspense arrives. I stayed glued to a couple of clues but never guessed who the killer was. Looking back, I can see some more clues that were dropped that I glossed over.

Overall, I found All the Sinners Bleed hard to put down once I got into it. There was a lot of religious imagery and quotes that didn’t mean as much to me as it will to others but helped develop the story. This book is not for the faint of heart and contains many topics that may be triggering to those who have experienced child abuse in particular.

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