I'm not a big reader of military thrillers. I got caught up in the Tom Clancy fever years ago, but had to walk away as his books became ever more bloated and platforms for his own political beliefs. I tended to avoid them after that, only really coming back through a side door with [a:Jonathan Maberry|72451|Jonathan Maberry|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1442453747p2/72451.jpg] and his phenomenal Joe Ledger series. I came for the horror element, but stayed for the military thriller element.

I had a very similar introduction to Carsten Stroud. I came across [b:Niceville|13151175|Niceville|Carsten Stroud|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333576687s/13151175.jpg|17891971], which I took for a somewhat Southern Gothic horror novel...which it was. But the military-grade bank heist portions took me by surprise, because of what I thought I would be reading, and because they were so damn well written.

So now I'm trying to dig up more Stroud novels. Cobraville is the first, and damn, what a great novel. There's no horror here, unless you include the horror that people in power do every day.

Stroud has a wonderful style. He's beautifully descriptive (perhaps a bit too much at times, but it's so well done, I can hardly complain), but when he gets down to the action, he's sharp, hard and precise as hell. But over top of all that, he writes stories that constantly defy the reader's expectations. It's hard to describe exactly what I mean, but the closest I can come to is Elmore Leonard. Leonard will write a crime caper where everyone is out to screw everyone else, and you can see the flow, you can see exactly where he's going to take it. But the characters reveal hidden depths that then change the flow of the story and take it into unexpected, but logical directions. Stroud does the same.

And he does it not with silly plot manipulations, but through his brilliant characterization. There's a scene, toward the last third of the novel, between Drew Langan and a cop investigating a murder and coming to him due to a call Langan placed to the victim. It's too long a scene to reproduce here, but when you read it, it shows Stroud's practiced, easy grasp of style and character. It propels the entire novel.

I thought I had this book figured out a dozen times. Stroud told me I was wrong all twelve times.

And then, there's these wonderful bits of wisdom that are scattered throughout the novel as well. I'll leave you with just one:

"We're told," said Strackbein, "that God requires the suffering of the world. In penance. And for the salvation of our souls."

"So we are endlessly told," said Desaix, nodding. "I often wonder why God is represented to us as a deity so addicted to suffering. God as a connoisseur of human grief. Such a God would truly be a monster, if He existed at all."

"That's not my God," said Cole, a lapsed Episcopalian.

Desaix made a gesture of resignation, sighing.

"Sometimes I am ashamed of what we Catholics have made out of our God, a brooding old dweller in the cathedral apse, a grudge-holder demanding our praise, our shameless supplications, these mewling, self-hating entreaties--the store-bought incense, our mumbled pleas... We are told we can only speak to God through the saints--through Jesus--that insipid cocotte with his simpering, vacant smile, those watery eyes--the cartoon heart crowned with thorns--entreaties channeled through the Cult of the Virgin--idolatry, abject submission, self-hatred. This farcical pope, preaching alms for the poor while he squats in his city of gold, his rancid soul bought and paid for by those fundamentalist thugs in Opus Dei."

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