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    The Cobra
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    The Cobra
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    The Cobra
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Cobra

    Written by Frederick Forsyth

    Narrated by Jonathan Davis

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An extraordinary cutting-edge thriller from the New York Times-bestselling grandmaster of international suspense.

    Meticulous research, crisp narratives, plots as current as today's headlines-Frederick Forsyth has helped define the international thriller as we know it. And now he does it again.

    What if you had carte blanche to fight evil? Nothing held back, nothing off the table. What would you do? For decades, the world has been fighting the drug cartels, and losing, their billions of dollars making them the most powerful and destructive organizations on earth. Until one man is asked to take charge. Paul Devereaux used to run Special Operations for the CIA before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now he can have anything he requires, do anything he thinks necessary. No boundaries, no rules, no questions asked.

    The war is on-though who the ultimate winner will be, no one can tell...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 17, 2010
    ISBN9781101436677
    Unavailable
    The Cobra
    Author

    Frederick Forsyth

    Frederick Forsyth (b. 1938) is an English author of thrillers. Born in Kent, he joined the Royal Air Force in 1956, becoming one of the youngest pilots to ever fly in Her Majesty’s service. After two years in the RAF, he began working as a journalist. He later turned his journalism skills to writing fiction, and his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1970), was a great success. Forsyth continued to use real figures and criminal organizations as inspiration, writing popular books like The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His most recent novel is The Cobra (2010).  

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    Reviews for The Cobra

    3.5/5

    195 ratings28 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The Cobra was a bit of a disappointment for me, especially since I love Forsyth and most of his works. The premise is pretty simple. The president, who is clearly meant to be Obama, decides to take on the cocaine cartels and wants them wiped out. To do this, he turns to an ex-CIA man code named "The Cobra," who assures him that with appropriate time and resources, he can do it. He then recruits an ex-soldier named Cal Dexter to be his second in command. And thus begin my complaints with the book.After this initial introduction to The Cobra, we almost never see him again until the very end of the book. How odd is that? Instead, Dexter is everywhere -- all over the world -- coordinating the logistics for putting together cocaine hunter/killer special ops groups who are going to take on the cartels by air and sea. Additionally, friendly governments are recruited to help, the British by sending their special forces, others by ramping up security. And halfway through the book, after tons of planning, the operation begins. And goes on and on. And the good guys -- who are real god -- and the bad guys -- who are real bad -- go at it, with the good guys winning virtually 100% of the time, so incredibly easily that you have to wonder if the government actually followed this novel as a planning guide, could it eradicate the drug trade? Forsyth makes it look so damn easy. And that's not remotely realistic.There's a twist at the end that brings The Cobra back into the story and also involves Dexter. By now, the cartels have figured out what's going on to a certain degree, but seem powerless to stop it. Amazing. What happens at the very end was a bit of a surprise to me, and a welcome one, actually, but it couldn't save the book. Why name the book "The Cobra" when it actually should have been named "Cal Dexter?" It doesn't make sense. Why write a book that makes winning the war on drugs -- which America has stunningly lost to a shocking degree -- look so incredibly easy when we know it's not? It's not remotely realistic. Some people complain of boredom due to the incredible detail and planning that went on during the first half of the book. Well, that's basically Forsyth's way, so I personally don't have a problem with that. But it's got to lead somewhere. And this led nowhere. Another complaint -- there's no sense of suspense or real danger to the good guys in this book. You get that in the Odessa File, the Jackal, the Fourth Protocol, etc., but not here. It's just non-stop intercepting and destroying drug shipments left and right. The only danger is to the bad guys. Not much of a thriller.Normally I highly recommend Forsyth books, but I'm afraid this time I can't. I'm not even sure why I'm giving it three stars instead of two. I guess out of respect for the author. Not recommended.
    • 3/5
      Kind of a disappointment after "The Day of the Jackal".2.5/5
    • 4/5
      When a teenager's death by overdose bring the cocaine trade to the President's attention, the first domino falls - the Cobra, retired CIA, is given a task: bring down the cartels and stop the cocaine trade. Sparely written but packed with miniscule details, Cobra is a fast and furious read with a twisty end. Good beach fare.
    • 3/5
      A decent thriller, that trace all across the world, about the drug industry- namely cocaine. There is a wide cast of characters, but the plot is mainly what moves things forward on this work and it's exciting enough for the duration of the ride. Overall, a decent novel.3 stars.
    • 4/5
      Another really good book by one of the masters.
    • 2/5
      The premise of Cobra is that the president of the United States has decided that he wants to eliminate Cocaine trade in the United States. The laughable part about that is that the president is described as a black man whose father is from Kenya and his mother is a white woman from Kansas. Hmm…I wonder who they could be referring to. The laughable part is that this is the premise despite the fact that the Obama administration is incredibly soft on drug crimes. At any rate, he assigns the task of crushing Cocaine trafficking to a ruthless CIA agent nicknamed the Cobra. He will do anything to gain his result. He opts to attack Cocaine trafficking at see, but his end game is to get the gangs and the cartels to fight each other to the death.I thought the premise of this novel was interesting, but that was about all that I liked about it. My biggest complaint is that the narration was done with this third person omniscient viewpoint that was so detached that it felt often times like I was reading an essay instead of a fiction novel. Even worse is that the novel is completely devoid of any tension. Everything goes exactly as planned and there is never any threat to the Cobra or Cal Dexter, his main operative. It is only until the very end, where there is any possible danger. Therefore, there was little to no intrigue in this novel either. I would advise skipping this novel.Carl Alves – author of Blood Street
    • 5/5
      Well reseached, factual, unputdownable.
    • 2/5
      I can't believe I actually finished this book. If I read it instead of listening to it, I probably would not have finished it. However, I'm giving it two stars - 1) for actually writing a book about doing something that a lot of people talk about (ending the cocaine trade) and 2) for having a realistic ending (even though I would have given him a star if he had written a fantasy ending that I would have liked better).Other than that, this book sounded like Jonathan Davis was reading an instruction manual. I kept drifting and having to rewind. After a while I just let it go and I heard what I heard, and it was enough to get the story.
    • 2/5
      I probably made a mistake in beginning to read this book with preconceived notions of the techno-thriller genre. I read Clancy, Bond and Brown, among others and have consistently enjoyed their works as well as many others.This book shows serious promise in the beginning, but the story weakens towards the middle and the ending is not only a surprise but makes one question whether the story they had been reading to that point is the one that just finished.It is a decent entry in the thriller genre, but is not going to compare favorably to most of the major authors.
    • 2/5
      Very poor, totally unbeliveable in many places quite preposterous in others, the rest is just weak, totally unlike his past masterworks.The basic premise is that the US president becomes personally affected by the effects on cocaine, and decides to increase the war on drugs to unprecidented levels. He does this by contracting an outsider - a now retired CIA agent, who takes on this mandate only under the conditions that he has a totally free hand. To do this the president declares cocaine a clear and present danger to the US, raising it to the same stakes as terrorism. Unfortunetly Forsyth thinks that this alieviates the responsabilities of civil rights. It doesn't, and this is only the first of several such basic errors. Another spectacular one is in assuming you can get DNA from someone's coffee cup, or that the british Prime Minister cares about global warming. All the portrayals of UK characters are very poor - something that Forsyth used to be quite good at. Although I don't know any Columbian's I doubt that any of those characters are accurate either. I hope that some research was conducted inot the drugs trade, as the various smuggling techniques feature frequently - but given all the other errors I could easily believe that Forsyth just made it all up.The story alternates between overviews of various special forces actions as dictated by teh Cobra - our CIA chap - and brief snap shots of the effects these have on the cocaine Cartel. It is not an effective story telling technique. There is no sense of action or drama in the comba sequences, and way too much foreshadowing in the criminal scenes. Added to this is a confused few sections where the left hand is supposed to not know what the right had is doing, but results in it being unclear who if anyone knows anything at all. The one area where the book could have shone, but didn't, would have been a discussion of the various possabilities of how to combat drug abuse. Legalisation wasn't even mentioned, which is yet another massive failing. About the only positive thing I can say is that it was coherentle written without obvious gramatical flaws.Don't waste your time with this, go and read Day of the Jackel which is heaps better.
    • 3/5
      I received this as an ARC last summer, but somehow didn't realize I'd won it, and then my apartment managers managed to misplace it until it turned up again when they were going through Christmas packages that needed to be picked up. And no, the package hadn't been opened and read. Too funny.In any case, this was another solid outing by Forsyth, but there's little to make it stand out from the crowd. The writing is solid, the research is excellent and evident, but the plot and pacing never really drew me into the story. Instead, in many ways, it reads more like a non-fiction thesis on how to attack the drug problem, as opposed to being a thriller. And other than Cal Dexter, there weren't many memorable characters who were making me root for them, as I had my doubts about the eponymous Cobra from the very outset.The twist at the end almost raised it to a four-star read, but it still fell short for me.
    • 3/5
      IMO, writer was just to detailed with all info, much to descriptive. But I like books w/tons of dialogue and this one is 98% narrative, thus the 3 stars.
    • 2/5
      I always enjoy Frederick Forsyth's books and when I read one I find myself asking why he isn't one of the authors for whom I rush to the store to buy a new book. However, The Cobra did not live up to Forsyth's usual standard. Unfortunately, the book read less like a novel and more like a journalistic history piece chronicling certain events. The characters were mere pieces on a chessboard to be shuffled; they were never people and certainly not people about whom the reader cared. I learned quite a bit about the cocaine business (Forsythe is known for impressive research and, as always, he makes the reader believe that Forsythe knows of what he writes), but there needed to be more story to back up the reams of information. In some ways, I felt as if Forsyth was trying to recapture the detail and complexity that made Icon so good, but that book had terrific characters who faced dangers and challenges. The Cobra was simply not up to Forsyth's standards, but I guess that even the masters are entitled to a "swing and miss" now and then.
    • 1/5
      The premise for this book was unrealistic and the end result a disappointment as I expected
    • 5/5
      The Cobra by Frederick Forsythe is a very well written novel. The character development was excellent and made you care/hate them depending on whether they were the white/black hat guys. I especially loved the take on Rahm Emmanuel (Jon Silver) in the book. The novel made him seem just as hated a politician as the real life person.The premise of the methodology to reduce the cocaine trade from Columbia is something most people would love to have happen as long as they didn't know the details of how it was done. It is done quietly and behind closed doors in the book. The results were what everyone wanted until the shortage led to violence among the criminals. Of course most of the violence in the US is currently caused by these same criminals protecting their turf now. This is as good as any book ever written by Frederick Forsythe. I have read most of his novels over time and loved this one.
    • 2/5
      I'm sorry but this thinly disguised book written about our current president and wife that starts in the present and runs into the future is a "turn off" for me! Especially coming from the author of The Jackal.
    • 4/5
      A definite hard-to-put-down read. Scary statistics which I suspect are relatively accurate. Well-written and very interesting, but went on a bit too long in my opinion. Can't say I was pleased with the ending, either, but that's just me.
    • 4/5
      Very well written. Frederick Forsyth writes a great thriller that was slow to start but picked up pace and the many twists and turns kept you surprised at the end.
    • 4/5
      Frederick Forsyth still has it. He seems to excel in that combination of fact and fiction backed by much research into whatever the background of the particular novel. In the Cobra, an American president, undoubtedly Barack Obama, for his wife is named Michelle, is moved to take drastic action against the Colombian drug cartel that controls the worldwide distribution of cocaine. An elderly, black White House waitress collapses in tears at a state dinner. Her grandson has just died of as cocaine overdose. She had been raising him and trying to save him from the streets. She pours out her story to the First Lady who later relates it to POTUS. This is the catalyst for the President to recruit an ex-CIA official, the Cobra, Paul Devereaux to head a quasi-military organization dedicated to eradicating the Colombian cartel jnown as Hermanidad. Devereaux has been given carte blanche by POTUS to do whatever it takes to solve the problem. Cocaine trafficking has quietly been changed to an offense equal to terrorism and the British have bought into the scheme. Devereaux demands a string of conditions and a year's lead time before any overt action will be taken against Hermanidad. He spends that year organizing, recruiting and planning. He has two ships outfitted to interdict ships carrying cocaine, but this time there will be no seizures with great fanfare. The ships will be boarded after all communications are temporarily blocked. The crew will be taken to Diego Garcia for detention and the ships will be sunk. Using unmanned drones, planes are indentified taking off from remote areas in Brazil bound for West Africa. The planes Cobra is looking for would normally not have enough range to complete the trip. Any plane attempting the trip must therefore have added gas tanks and be a cartel plane. They are simply shot down. Cobra's strategy is to seize or destroy the cocaine while it is still in the cartel's hands. Once handed, off the various gangs who are taking delivery of the product are liable for its loss. Does the book strain credulity? Of course. The idea of Barck Obama sanctioning an extra legal war against the cartel is laughable. Perhaps the book may have worked better with a fictional President. There is a Rahm Emmanuel type chief of staff who must deal with the Cobra. In the end the President gets cold feet. The Cobra has succeeded too well. He has sown disinformation that has the cartel and distributing gangs at each other's throats. Wholesale gang warfare has broken out and civilians have been killed and injured in the crossfire. This is the least satisfying part of the book. You had the feeling that it would all end badly. Devereaux is summoned to the White House and told to stand down and end his activities. He has stockpiled 150 tons of cocaine and uses it to bargain with the head of the cartel to ensure his personal safety now that the operation is over. The Cobra is found murdered in his house by his second in command. This doesn't seem to square with the Cobra's values and how he was portrayed in the balance of the book. Overall I enjoyed the book, especially the first 80%. The planning, strategy, and tactics of Cobra were very entertaining. I'm glad Forsyth is still writing.
    • 3/5
      Very nice story line and interesting description of what we would need to do to completely stop the cocaine traffic, which would require complete and silent cooperation from the USA and its friends. Not enough character development from the two main characters, Paul Devereaux and Cal Dexter for my tastes and a disappointing ending for me. This novel could have been much better.
    • 4/5
      A well written and almost beleivable story that takes you across the face of the globe into the underworld of illicet drugs. As the bold plan unfolds you gain an understanding of the barbarity of the drug trade as the plot leads to a rather unexpected ending. A book that is well worth the time invested to read it.
    • 3/5
      Frederick Forsyth's latest book, The Cobra, is an international thriller so intriguing that it leaves the reader wondering how much is fiction and what portions could be bits and pieces of real events. When the President of the United States wants to declare war on the cartels bringing cocaine into the U.S. he send for "The Cobra", Paul Devereaux. Devereaux earned his nickname for his ruthlessness during his CIA career. The president calls him out of retirement and gives him carte blanche to fight one more enemy of America. Forythe's attention to detail is meticulous as Devereaux weaves an intricate web around his prey. The reader must be patient while the trap is set, but once it is sprung the action is fast paced and the ending is something of a surprise.
    • 4/5
      As an action book, this one never stops. It offers a very clear plan to severely hinder, even destroy, the Columbian drug cartel. It is clearly a very well researched book. On the other hand, there is very little character development and no romance. It is about highly motivated men who apply themselves fully to the task. The methods of gathering information are carefully thought out and described.
    • 4/5
      I just finished Frederick Forsyth's new novel The Cobra. I found the book to be an easy and fast read because I am a fan of international thrillers and this book fills that category. To some readers the preparation for the attack on the bad guys by the forces of the US may seem long and drawn out, but that is necessary to show the intricacies of planning such an attack against the drug cartels must entail. It is also a way to introduce whom I believe to be the main character, Dexter. The book shows what it would take to defeat the drug cartels and how far a government would have to go to attempt to shut them down. And though successful, how elected officials can reverse their stance and demand a stop to a efficient program just short of it being completed. Readers may wish that such an operation could be carried out but are we willing to pay the price that may be asked of our society for such an undertaking.I enjoyed the book and really did not expect the twist at the end. I believe it is a fitting end to the book and makes one consider what can a nation that is built on laws do to protect itself and its people. It is a fascinating look at the inner workings of police and military units and how they could possibly be brought together to overcome the drug cartels. Will it happen, I think not, but it is an interesting story and well worth the read.
    • 4/5
      This work of fiction was easy to read and it may be because I already had a working knowledge of almost ninety percent of the acronyms used. There is no need to have knowledge of all the acronyms for they are listed in the front of the book and explained as they are used in the narrative. The concept for the novel is rather bold, the president of the United States has decided that cocaine is a clear and present danger to the country; though those exact words are not used. An old school Central Intelligence Agency operative, Paul Deveraux, who was retired from the agency because of his violent yet effective methods is summon to accomplish the task.From the formulation of the basic desire of the president and with an executive order in hand Mr. Deveraux begins his prep work of building the organization he will need to combat the world cocaine trade and try to stop it. The book does go into detail on this organization building and research performed on the cocaine trade. We the reader are also introduced to the inner workings of the cocaine trade from the inside and can watch the actions and reactions of both sides as the book progresses. The realistic action in the book spans the cocaine using world.All the above mentioned background is told in great detail and takes about half the book to get us where most readers of action want to be, the actual operation. The reader is privy to the operations as they take place and the cocaine organizations response as these operations to destroy the cocaine industry unfolds. A calculated plan of action with a plot that is easy to read. The background of the inner details we learned earlier about the formation of the anti-drug teams and the drug cartel bear fruits as the story unfolds. A rich yet violent work of fiction that is filled with accurate facts on existing governmental agencies and their capabilities.
    • 5/5
      I read this book in one seating and found that it flowed from the beginning to end. I can see where some may get inpatient with the planning of such an endeavor that Mr. Devereaux is asked to accomplish. The complete eradication of the cocaine trade by the executive branch of the USA. It is true as far as action goes the book does not pick up until over a third of the way in. So if you are expecting non-stop action you will have a few chapters to wade through if you do not wish to understand what is involved in executing those maneuvers. And though the President of the U.S. that he alludes too would never give such an order; all of the agencies and the privileges of executive orders using loopholes in laws are all very realistic. I think that most expected the author to jump straight into action and did not enjoy the planning stage of the book that I found extremely interesting. The only part of the book that was expected is the so called twist at the end of the book.
    • 4/5
      At his best, Forsyth blends fact and fiction so effortlessly you can end up wondering whether what you are reading really did happen. Alas, this isn't his best novel {although it's not his worst). The basic storyline is a tad implausible, even utopian for the hard-headed Forsyth: when the president of the United States decides to play hardball with drug traffickers and kill the cocaine business, two characters from his previous novel, Avenger, who were adversaries, unite to fulfill the mission.As in any Forsyth novel, there's more attention paid to the mechanics of how this is done -- to the back story, the details, the procedures -- than to characters or dialogue, etc. Usually the Forsyth books are compelling enough that I find that approach works; in this case, it's not as effective, and I found myself bogging down. Many of Forsyth's better novels have focused on events of the recent past -- the first Gulf War -- or complex situations based on reality, like the rise of a populist anti-Semitic new force in Russian politics. In this story, which is based on an unlikely scenario and one that can't be tied as readily to real events, the narrative loses some of its punch. Even the "twist" in the story isn't really that surprising, if the reader thinks through what MIGHT happen should the powers that be decide to really pull no punches in killing off the cocaine trade. And the fact that Forsyth is concerning himself with a moral issue rather than the usual shades-of-grey political/military conflict also makes it tricky. There are the heroes, and the villains, and both do nasty things. Only recommended to Forsyth fans; if you haven't discovered his books yet, I can strongly recommend The Deceiver and Icon as well as classics like The Odessa File, or even Avenger. They would all get ratings of 4 stars or greater. This was a 3.5 star book for me, and a bit of a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      I expect Forsyth novels to be fast-paced and exciting, but then I hadn't read his more recent books. This is a detailed story that requires patience; many characters, so many the list in the front is a great addition, also the list of acronyms. Because the concept involved is so massive an undertaking, you get halfway through the book before anything exciting happens and even then you aren't real sure what the overall plan is. However, a huge plan is in the works - destroying the international drug cartels and thus the world's drug trade. This is a good read, just not what I expected. It requires patience and an eye for subtle details. The end has a twist that surprised me, made me sit back and say, "Wow!"