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    Cobra
    Cobra
    Cobra
    Audiobook10 hours

    Cobra

    Written by Deon Meyer

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    At a guest house in the beautiful Franschhoek wine valley, a famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards killed. It's clearly a professional job, and the spent shell casings offer a chilling clue: each is engraved with the head of a spitting cobra.Meanwhile, in Cape Town, a skilled young thief is using his talents to put his sister through college. One day he picks the wrong pocket, grabbing the wallet of a young American woman who was delivering valuable and dangerous information. Before the day is over, five more people have been killed by Cobra, the sister is kidnapped, and the thief is on the run.Captain Benny Griessel and South Africa's top police unit, the Hawks, attempt to identify the missing man, save the sister, and track down Cobra. But when intelligence services step in, ordering them to turn over the investigation, it becomes clear that powerful people are involved. The Hawks, however, aren't about to let it go. Building to a deadly, heart-pounding finale, Cobra is a masterful thriller from a writer at the top of his game.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateOct 7, 2014
    ISBN9781622315222
    Cobra
    Author

    Deon Meyer

    Internasionaal bekende skrywer Deon Meyer woon op Stellenbosch. Sy publikasies sluit in dertien misdaadromans (onder meer Spoor, 2010, 7 Dae, 2011, Kobra, 2013, Ikarus, 2015, Koors, 2016, Prooi, 2018, en Donkerdrif, 2020). Orion, Proteus en Infanta is met die ATKV-prosaprys bekroon en Prooi met die ATKV-prys vir Spanningsfiksie.

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    Reviews for Cobra

    4/5

    77 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of Deon Meyer's best - crime in post-apartheid South Africa, with Detective Benny Griessel and his colleagues, under-staffed, under-paid and dodging the challenges from various political factions. Written with a generous sprinkling of the local humour and vernacular. Beautifully translated from Afrikaans. Murder in the winelands - who done it and why? Clever use of modern technology required to catch the bad guy (guys)! A cracking read, couldn't put the book down.
    • 5/5
      Man, I love Deon Meyer's books. What a fantastic series.
    • 3/5
      Before commenting on the plot and writing I wish to offer some comments germane to the ebook version of COBRA. I found the e-book production quality of COBRA unacceptable. After so many years of ebook availability, I feel it is about time for publishers to overcome these seemingly trivial challenge First, the pages of COBRA are not numbered, so the reader is once again stuck with location numbers. . Secondly, there were a number of typos. One example - for some strange reason, any word beginning with "fl" seemed to be followed by a number of spaces and then the rest of the characters. So, "flat" becomes "fl at"; ditto for "fl ower" etc etc. In addition, there were other typos including missing spaces between words. Finally, and worst of all, the ebook version did not have line spacing between paragraphs when a setting changed within a chapter. On a number of occasions, I would be two or three paragraphs into a different scene before realizing it. Very distracting, causing me to backup and re-read every so often, and unfortunately losing the thread of the story on occasion. I am not a publishing expert but it seems to me that given the price of ebooks and the reduced costs of production since printing, binding and shipping charges are non-existent suggest to me that it is not unreasonable to expect better quality.I have been a fan of Deon Meyer for several years now and I have read most of his books. COBRA is good and once again the protagonist is Benny Griessel, a Cape Town police detective, supported by the usual crew. The plot concerns the kidnapping of a visiting UK VIP, during which two members of his security team are assassinated. The killer has left casings behind with the figure of a particularly deadly cobra etched on them. As the case unfolds, other government and police organizations become involved and Benny and team are told to butt out. There is further complexity added with the introduction of a pickpocket with a heart of gold who unwittingly becomes involved.Two hints to ease your reading if you decide to invest in COBRA. First you might want to keep a scorecard of the characters along with a mini bio of each; there are a lot of them and the local names don't make it easy to differentiate them. Secondly, do a quick Google lookup of the Cape Town metro system (find a map) and I think this also make it easier to follow "who's on first" as the story approaches the climax.As usual, the story is fast-paced and interesting, the writing is very good, and the reader gets some insights into South African life. I do have some nits with the writing, however. I have no idea why Meyer felt compelled, in the middle of the story, to give a quick overview of each of the six steps involved in a human male's urination process. I can only wonder what the next book might hold. There is a final scene between a cop (not Benny) and the pickpocket, which is total fantasy, belonging perhaps only in the movie version. Lastly, the revelation of who is behind this whole kidnapping/killing/chase is an incredible stretch and, I believe, says maybe too much about Meyer's political beliefs and might be too much even for the movie version. So, my usual Meyer score is a 5, but a 1 point deduct for production quality, and a 1 point deduct for too much of the same vis-a-vis other Benny episodes. Think I'll give this series a break for a while.....Finally, I intend to comment on ebook production quality in future reviews until fixed and I suggest other reviewers do the same.
    • 4/5
      Another thoroughly enjoyable book from this South African author. A quick read, solid but not complex characters, a couple of seemingly disconnected stories that coalesce, and well paced for a uncomplex but not overly simple read.
    • 5/5
      I had a hard time getting into this book and wondered what Michael Connelly saw in it. It didn't take long to become utterly absorbed in this though! Meyer is a master of suspense. Loved every minute and was so sorry when it ended.
    • 4/5
      This is the fourth in the Captain Benny Griessel series based in and around post-apartheid Cape Town. In this thriller/police procedural, Griessel is in a race against time (isn't he always?) to find a kidnapped British scientist (Adair) before further killings ensue. Further that is to those that occurred when the scientist was kidnapped by an assassin, or group of, whose call signs are bullet casings engraved with a spitting cobra. They seem to be a very professional and ruthless group of hitmen determined to recover a memory card which has fallen into the hands of a pickpocket who plies his trade in an effort to support his sister who is attending college. With his sister's life also under threat, the pickpocket pursues his own means of safeguarding her life while maybe trying to profit from having the memory card in his possession. Invaluable information regarding global terrorism seems to be what's at stake, and maybe even the involvement of big business. Thus the mystery; who is behind efforts to recover the memory card and the kidnapping of the scientist? Will we find out? This is a pacy, well plotted suspenseful thriller, as are Deon Meyer's books usually. Much of the story revolves around the kidnapper and his role in proceedings, you might say at a cost to Griessel's own role. Griessel is a recovering alcoholic who does not always see eye to eye with his superiors, traits common it seems to principal police characters in crime/thriller novels. The ending is violent, but will it leave you satisfied? Read and see!
    • 4/5
      Deon Meyer provides the reader with his ninth police procedural in "Cobra."A famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his bodyguards killed in the picturesque Franschhoek wine valley of South Africa. The man was traveling under an alias and tried to keep his identity unknown. He has developed a formula that will help trail financial transactions and make terrorist and secret government financial actions more difficult to hide.When police arrive, the only apparent clue is the shell casings from the bullets. They are engraved in such a way that the police refer to the kidnapper/killer as the Cobra, a known assassin.Through Meyer's writing we see the rivalry between the Hawks, members of SAPS (South African Police Service" and the SIS, the government security service. It is akin to the territorial rivalry between local municipalities and our government agencies of CIA and FBI.Detective Benny Griessel leads the investigators with his colleagues. Benny is the central character along with Tyrone Kleinbooi, a 'coloured' pickpocket who is trying to pay for his sister's tuition at the university through his thievery. He's an interesting character as we see him plan for his needs and then steal what is necessary.Meyer tells us about Benny's past fall into alcoholism but he has been sober for over 400 days and even helped his girlfriend overcome her difficulty with the same ailment.We also see the tensions between white and black and the attitude many have where in the University they are teaching more English than Africanis.The action is well done and when Tyrone picks the wrong person to rob and the Cobra wants it back, it gets personal and suspense mounts. Tyrone tells the Cobra off and tells him not to mess with his sister.This is a very visual story with good action and good descriptions.”