If Joseph Heller and Carl Hiaasen had a literary love child in occupied Gaza or Iraq's Green Zone, it would be this insightful and darkly comic anti-war masterpiece.

Spying inside the Embargoed Zone (aka the "Easy") is expensive and hazardous, and the "terrorist" double agent known as Cobra needs his wages in cash. But his down-at-the-heels spymaster from the occupying forces can only pay with an American-made, top-loading washing machine. When it turns out that this piece of clothes-washing technology is critical to the occupation, a frantic scramble to retrieve the sensitive hardware ensues.

Packed with unforgettable characters—including a resourceful local teenage girl, an intrepid reporter navigating the Easy, an egotistical blogger with delusions of relevance, a hapless drone pilot, and at least one very unfortunate donkey—Toploader is a savage and hilarious indictment of occupation diplomacy.