Mark Greaney

Thirteen books into this series, and Greaney just keeps hitting home runs.

That kind of shocks me, as I'm terrible for getting fatigued with any long running series (say, anything over about six books). I can, off the top of my head, really only think of James S.A. Corey's 10-book Expanse series, the constantly expanding Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry, Joe R. Lansdale's Hap & Leonard series, and the phenomenal 41 books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

And this one. Five series, show more out of likely hundreds that I've started and quit. So, that's saying something about both Greaney's storytelling ability.

This one's really fun, even if I did figure out what was going on far earlier than I was likely supposed to. It's the same stuff...Court gets yoinked into an impossible situation that he then has to fight his way out of.

The strength here is, the impossible situations are always different, and the cast of characters that inhabit Court's world are always a lot of fun.

And this one also happens to be quite topical, so bonus marks for that.

Another winner in the series. show less

Ho hum, Court's back in action, in a plan that keeps going awry.

I'm kidding. I absolutely love these books. What amazes me is the mileage Greaney gets out of his Gray Man character. He constantly finds new ways to challenge him, and place him in distinctly different situations, each as fun as the last.

Keep grinding out Gray Man stories, and I'll keep reading them!

A thoroughly enjoyable read. Not the best writing I have ever had the pleasure to read, but enjoyable all the same. Mark Greaney got the characters right. He got the dialogs right, even if it was rough in places.

I am fairly sure that I had never heard of Greaney until I noticed two Gray Man novels in a used bookstore. I will admit that after seeing "Gray Man" on the book jackets, I thought this had something to do with the "In the Grey" (Guy Ritchie) movie trailer I'd recently watched. And show more that according to the same book jacket, Lee Child loves the Gray Man. If it wasn't for those two things, I probably never would have bought them.

But it took me all of about two seconds to get into this book. Sure, it is kind of goofy. Court Gentry is an amalgam of every kind of elite operative that has walked the earth. There is action and violence on a video game scale, the body count is astronomical, and the intelligence and tracking abilities of the bad guys is otherworldly. But the author is good at building suspense, and it is always nice to see the bad guys getting their comeuppance; and by nice, I mean in the "nicest" way possible being blown to bits (or similar), something that rarely happens in the real world. And even when Gentry becomes all nerdy and geeky and flustered in the presence of a woman, and it doesn't really seem in character, it is still all good.

So, yes, "slightly" over-the-top. The Gray Man can get himself caught by the bad guys 3 times more often than James Bond, and with the chances of getting away 10 times less likely, but... he manages to escape from 100 times the forces with 500 times the firepower; truly impressive.

Long story short, I just spent the past 2-3 days neglecting work I needed to do to do more reading than I needed to do. I believe that I am now hooked on the Gray Man series. show less

Wow, Greaney really beats the shit out of his titular character in this first outing. Almost to the point of ridiculousness. And that pretty much gives you the full scope of what this introductory novel sets up.

This is what I usually refer to as Big Dumb Fun. It's almost non-stop action, it's guns and knives and grunting, fighting men using their fists first, each man doing his damndest to prove he has the bigger dick. But through all of it runs the insanely moral Gray Man, who has no show more interest in dick measurement, he just wants to ensure all the good dicks live, and the bad dicks die. And he respects anyone else who displays a hint of a similar life goal.

Don't think about the plot too much, or it begins to fall apart (how much are they spending globally to put down one unputdownable guy?), but if you just put on your seatbelt, put on your protective headgear, and retain a firm grip on the holy shit bars, you'll definitely have some fun with this novel.

I just wonder how much more Greaney can put his hero through before I can't suspend my disbelief anymore. show less