BOOK REVIEW: Cogar's Despair by Nate Granzow

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Allow me to preface this review by admitting that I know Nate Granzow. And by “know,” I mean we bang around in some of the same social media circles and occasionally exchange online pleasantries. It does not mean “know” in the biblical sense, nor does it mean this review is biased. But if you want to assume either of those things, well, to paraphrase Bobby Brown … that’s your prerogative. 

With that all cleared up, let’s buckle down to the actual review, shall we?

Cogar’s Despair is the highly entertaining debut of one of the unlikeliest heroes you’ll ever encounter in the modern action-adventure genre. Grant Cogar is not a guns-‘n’-guts warrior like John Rambo/Matrix/Wick, so if you’re despondent over the endless parade of superhuman macho operatives clogging up today's action thrillers, then Cogar will be a refreshing change of pace.

A sarcastic (the droll quips are the highlight of the novel), brash, unapologetic, womanizing—did I mention sarcastic?—underdog, Grant is anything but your cookie cutter action protagonist. If you’re looking for the standard-issue tropes of bulging muscles, overcompensating firepower, and a triple digit corpse-count, then this is not the novel you seek. You most definitely will not mistake Cogar for The Executioner, The Specialist, The Penetrator, or any of those ilk (nothing wrong with any of those, mind you, but this is not that). Of course, you won’t mistake him for Pollyanna either…

As envisioned by expert wordsmith Nate Granzow, Cogar is the kind of everyman who stumbles into bad situations—like torture-happy Shanghai drug runners—and tries to use his fast-talking mouth to get out of them, resorting to fists (and, at the very end, weapons) when words just won't work and something more violent than a sharp tongue is required. It’s not that Cogar won’t resort to bloodshed; it’s just not his first option, unlike most of his trigger-happy contemporaries.

The novel is briskly-paced and packed with plenty of twists and turns, but regardless of which way the plot snaked, I was mostly just interested in what Cogar would say next. There are some laugh-out-loud insults and stellar dialogue in here, falling somewhere between Indiana Jones, Spiderman, and every crass drunk you've ever encountered. I’m not sure if “smartass adventurer” is an actual subgenre, but if there is, Grant Cogar belongs at the head of the pack.

Come for the smirking one-liners, stay for the hard-hitting fisticuffs, and be prepared to root for a new kind of action hero.