Court delivers Bianca Medina to the rebels, but his job doesn't end there. She soon reveals that she has given birth to a son, the only heir to Azzam's rule—and a potent threat to the Syrian president's powerful wife. Part of a thriller author’s job is to stay ahead of the headlines, which can be hard to do when you’re writing a book more than a year before it’ll actually be published. It’s something a lot of writers struggle with. Plus, the genre is so full of talented writers and popular series right now that it can be challenging to come up with something truly different than what everyone else is doing. Court goes after the baby, a decision that comes at the price of the mistress's life. The expat organisation deems the boy now useless to their cause and refuses to protect him against the Syrian first lady and the notorious Swiss assassin in her employ, a rather nasty character,with no support on the way, Court realise's he'll have to take down the Syrian president himself if he and the boy and the nanny are going to make it out alive... It all worked perfectly, and a book later, with Gunmetal Gray(2017), Mark Greaney landed on the New York Times list for the first time under his own name — not counting his work with Tom Clancy.

Then there was a female lead attached for a while before that fell through too, and Greaney told me he loves the actress — even if the script didn’t follow his book. In fact, never mind that last statement. There is not enough time to think about what he will be doing. You just have to read as fast as possible. This book is huge so make sure to plan your reading! Yeah, there was no rush because I liked the idea that there was this hit out on him, and he’s trying to figure out what he did wrong. I wanted to milk that as long as I could,” said Greaney, once again laughing, “and then pay it off to the readers who have spent time reading the books.” So Sony owns the rights to the story now, not the optioning, and they have a — I don’t think I’m allowed to say who — but a very well-known director who is circling the project. I’ve had conference calls with him and talked to his director of development a couple of times. I’m currently waiting to hear what they’ll do next. There is definitely a lot of energy within the studio to make the film because they bought it out from under me.” Somehow, Greaney cranks out one winner after another. That’s a lot of work for the Gray Man and plenty of pleasure for thriller fans.With my first book, it wasn’t part of some master plan. I was just trying to get published.” – Mark Greaney Obviously, it did all work out, and Greaney speaks very highly of his agent. In fact, he told me an interesting story about how he ended up creating the Gray Man and introducing readers to Court Gentry, a process that came to be through writing a different book that was never published.

Obviously I am coming into this series six books too late. When you are that far into a series, it’s evident that there are a number of different things you might be missing as a new reader. Sometimes that matters and other times it doesn’t. I would say with this book it was a mixed bag. Court is a deadly genius, often with super heroic antics but Mark Greaney has a fantastic ability to make it all sound so believable! Combined with Jay Snyder's outstanding narration, this book is another winner. Next, we have Sebastian Drexler. Drexler is probably my favourite character in the book, as he is a modern take on the 1980s Eurotrash bad guy. Of all the people in this story, he could be considered the true Levanter of “Agent In Place”, even more so than the actual Levanter that Gentry is hunting down. A Swiss Spy, born in the French side of the small, but influential nation, Drexler decided to relive the best traditions of his people. He became a mercenary, a boutique gun for hire amongst Europe’s more snobbish Corporate tycoons and later the not so snobbish dictators of the Third World. Forced into exile in Syria, Drexler starts the story with his career and life on the line. With Gentry ruining one of his plans, Drexler realizes that his current client is going to kill him if there is one more failure and so begins to make his exit plans, on the corpses of several innocent civilians and a baby boy if need be. The book was published in 1991, but it has a sort-of renewed timeliness in these days of an American president apparently entangled in some Russian spy games himself. loops:forIt is always ambitious to place your story in the midst of constantly changing current events and that gamble pays off handsomely here, taking the reader on a journey into the very belly of the Syrian Civil War with all of the different factions and players including mercenaries, the Free Syrian Army, Isis, the Russians, and others too numerous to mention without glancing at the scorecard. Maybe Court takes on an impossible mission - but the writing makes it believable and the battle scenes in Syria are real good. The novel begins with an excellent textbook use of in media res. Gentry is in the biggest jam of his life, watching Daesh Islamofacists take a bit off the top with a blade at the edge of a nice lake that is being filled with corpses. Gentry is hog tied alongside a Syrian ally of his watching heads literally roll. The Gray Man is then dragged for his own photo op and we’re left wondering how he will survive as we begin the story proper a few months previously. In one of the biggest graveyards in Paris, Gentry attends a meeting with an elderly Syrian Doctor. The man is an exile, a revolutionary, albeit one who has much to be modest about. Running an NGO that provides humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees the doctor’s organization has decided to strike a great blow for the Syrian people against the regime that seems to have triumphed utterly against its citizens whose will it is on the verge of breaking. Knowing that they themselves do not have the experience to strike such a blow, a deal is cut with officials of the French government who proceed to hire a professional private consultant in such matters. I hear from readers all the time who think that’s my best book,” he said, “and I think that’s because it’s the one that has the most personal story for the hero. It’s sort of all about him finding these answers, his identity, and all that stuff. It’s all so personal, and it’s a lesson for aspiring writers. The more important you can make the stakes to the hero, not just life and death, but more important than life and death, the more your book will resonate with people.” Court goes after the baby, a decision that comes at the price of the mistress’s life. The expat organization deems the boy now useless to their cause and refuses to protect him against the Syrian first lady and the notorious Swiss assassin in her employ. With no support on the way, Court realizes he’ll have to take down the Syrian president himself if he and the boy are going to make it out alive…