*GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLERS OF 2020**LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER 2020*’BLACKTOP WASTELAND may be the book of the year.’ MICHAEL CONNELLY’Sensationally good’ LEE CHILD’I loved BLACKTOP WASTELAND’ STEPHEN KING’Stunning. Can’t remember the last time I read such a powerful crime novel’ MARK BILLINGHAM”Bug” Montage: honest mechanic, loving family man. He’s no longer the criminal he was – the sharpest wheelman east of the Mississippi. But when his respectable life crumbles, a shady associate comes calling with a one-time job promising a huge payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver’s seat – and haunted by the ghost of his outlaw father – Bug is yanked back into a savage world of bullets and betrayal. Like Breaking Bad in a high-speed collision with Drive, this dazzling novel holds up a cracked mirror to the American Dream – and tells the story of one man pushed to his limits by poverty, race and a self-destructive masculinity. ‘Every once in a wh