King of Ashes

Published in 2025, S. A. Cosby’s King of Ashes is an adult Southern noir thriller set in Jefferson Run, Virginia. Roman Carruthers, a successful financial manager in Atlanta, returns home after his father enters a coma following a car accident. He discovers that his younger brother, Dante, is deeply indebted to a violent gang, and his sister, Neveah, is struggling to maintain the family-run crematorium. As Roman navigates the dangerous underworld to protect his family, he confronts long-buried secrets and a legacy of violence that threatens to consume them all. The novel explores themes including The Weight of Family Loyalty and Generational Trauma, The Relentless Cycle of Guilt and Punishment, and The Socioeconomics of Moral Decay. Higher Ground and Amblin Entertainment have acquired adaptive rights to the novel with plans for a Netflix TV series.

Citations in this study guide refer to the e-book edition released by Flatiron Books in 2025.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of mental illness, racism, child abuse, suicidal ideation, substance use, addiction, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, and death.

Language Note: The novel uses the n-word in Black characters’ dialogue, and this word does not appear in this guide.

Plot Summary

When Roman Carruthers was 16, his mother, Bonita, disappeared on the night of June 6, 2003. Now 35, Roman runs a wealth management firm in Atlanta. When his father, Keith, is in a car accident and enters a coma, Roman returns to his family’s home in Jefferson Run, Virginia, for the first time in five years. His younger sister, Neveah, suspects that their father’s injuries are the result of foul play. The Carruthers own a crematory, and Roman reluctantly agrees to help his sister with the family business because their younger brother, Dante, has not been in touch since their father’s accident.

During Roman’s first night back home, Dante returns and confesses that their father was attacked because he borrowed $300,000 worth of drugs from Torrent and Tranquil Gilchrist, the leaders of the Black Baron Boys gang (BBB). Dante and his friends Getty and Cassidy used up the drugs, leaving them deep in the criminals’ debt. The following night, Dante and Roman meet Torrent and Tranquil at the crematorium. To save his brother’s life, Roman promises to use his wealth management skills to make the gang leaders triple the money that Dante owes them, and he adds that they can use the crematorium to dispose of bodies for one month. Torrent accepts the bargain, but he cuts off Dante’s pinkie and has his brother, Tranquil, shatter four of Roman’s teeth.

Roman rushes Dante to the hospital, but the doctors are unable to reattach his finger. The next morning, Roman goes to the dentist and pays for implants to replace his shattered teeth. Her brothers’ injuries convince Neveah that her family is being stalked, and she asks the police officer that she’s having an affair with, Chauncey Mansfield, to investigate. Neveah also undertakes her own investigation into her mother’s disappearance, and she becomes increasingly convinced that Keith murdered Bonita and cremated her body.

In the middle of the night, Torrent summons Roman and Dante to the crematory and instructs them to kill Getty and Cassidy so that he can be certain that they won’t betray the gang’s secrets. A gang member named Splodie remains at the crematory to ensure that they comply, but another gang member named Yellaboy leaves without Torrent’s permission. Roman cremates Getty while the man is still alive. To protect Cassidy, Dante sneaks up behind Splodie and kills him by striking him in the head with a hammer. Roman disposes of Splodie’s body and urges Cassidy to leave town forever.

Roman asks his friend Khalil, an ex-military mercenary who now specializes in security for Atlanta’s celebrities, to come to Jefferson Run. Khalil and Roman agree that the best path forward is for Roman to use his financial skills to earn Torrent and Tranquil’s trust and then take the gang down from the inside. Roman meets with the gang leaders and convinces them that he can make them a fortune by playing the stock market.

A week later, Roman delivers $150,000 to the gang leaders at Tranquil’s birthday party. While he’s there, he meets and feels a romantic spark with their half-sister Jae. Roman arranges for Khalil to engage in a drive-by shooting at the party, and he shields both Torrent and Jae from the attack. Jae works for the mayor’s office and tells Roman that the city is going to gentrify an impoverished area. He proposes that Torrent use his ties to the mayor to secure some of the government contracts for the project, which will be worth millions. Although Torrent’s greed attracts him to Roman’s plans, Tranquil doesn’t believe the financial adviser is to be trusted.

To fulfill Roman’s plan, two of the Black Baron Boys torture a business owner into selling his construction company to Torrent. Roman meets with Jefferson Run’s corrupt mayor, who readily agrees to give the gang’s newly acquired company the government contracts in exchange for a large campaign donation. Roman and Jae’s feelings for one another deepen, but he conceals his work with her brothers and his true objectives from her.

The Ghost Town Crew, a rival gang, attacks a bar frequented by the BBB while Neveah and Dante are nearby. In the aftermath, Chauncey wants to interrogate Dante about his possible links to the BBB and Getty’s disappearance, but Neveah makes him stand down by threatening to reveal their affair to his wife. A few days later, Chauncey threatens to implicate Roman as a snitch unless he gives the detective a substantial bribe and becomes his confidential informant. When Roman rejects his offer, Chauncey arranges for the Ghost Town Crew to target Roman and Neveah in a drive-by shooting. Both siblings survive, but Neveah is overwhelmed with anger and fear and demands that Roman and Dante stop their involvement with the city’s organized crime.

Jae discovers that Roman lied to her and is working for her brothers, and she breaks off contact with him. When Cassidy returns to Jefferson Run in Splodie’s car, Roman instructs Khalil to dispose of her. The mercenary kills the young woman and frames the Ghost Town Crew for Splodie’s murder. Roman turns the members of the Black Baron Boys against Torrent and Tranquil by making them rich, and they kill their former leaders. Chauncey is also present at this fatal meeting, and Khalil kills the detective.

The night that Roman overthrows Torrent and Tranquil, Dante tries to avenge Cassidy’s death. He challenges the leader of the Ghost Town Crew, and the gang kills him. Roman’s grief over Dante’s death drives him to reach out to Jae for comfort, and they reconcile.

Neveah discovers where Keith hid her mother’s ashes. Certain that this is damning evidence that he murdered Bonita, Neveah kills her comatose father by giving him aspirin, which causes an aneurysm. Roman finally admits the true circumstances of Bonita’s death. On June 6, 2003, Roman and Dante discovered that their mother was having an affair with one of their father’s employees. When the brothers confronted her, she hit Roman. A physical struggle ensued, and she accidentally fell and struck her head. Keith wasn’t present when his wife died, and he burned her remains to shield himself and his sons from imprisonment. Horrified by what her brothers have done, Neveah leaves town and cuts off all contact with Roman.

Two weeks later, Roman meets with the members of his gang in the crematory. He plans to go to Atlanta briefly, but he and Khalil will return to reshape the Black Baron Boys into a more efficient, businesslike operation. When one of the gang members asks if they should be worried about the Ghost Town Crew, Roman produces and then cremates the body of the rival gang’s leader. Jae, who is pregnant with Roman’s child, comes to the crematory because she is anxious about her brothers’ prolonged absence. Roman promised her that he doesn’t work for Torrent and Tranquil anymore, but she realizes that he is now the gang’s leader. As Jae looks at Roman surrounded by his followers, she is reminded of Lucifer and his fallen angels.