Mark Greaney

While I truly liked the first book in the series, this one seems to be an attempt to cram as much as possible into a single book. And for me this backfired.

So, first thing first - Gray Man is assassin. He has no second thoughts about ending anyone's life but in this book he is so worried about the state of affairs in Sudan that he makes so many crazy moves and decisions, although he knows nothing will be changed.

He is patriot and joins his former CIA team (that also threatens to kill him, but hey its just talk between men in this line of work, just a way they jab at each other - or is it?), but he is also a mercenary who decides to work for a person he does not like at all (of course this guy is Russian), no wait he is actually philanthropist at heart who for a maybe 3 hour session while browsing the materiel on his new target, learned so much about Sudan that he fully understands everything that happens there and what is the appropriate way to handle the situation, because naughty Chinese and Russians are just exploiting Sudan, while Gray Man, in the intermezzo between blowing people apart, and working with equally simple-minded Canadian activist from [no less] the International Criminal Court, knows exactly what to do to bring peace and justice to this land (or as things move on, it becomes clear that this will just make Gray Man feel good because he knows nothing will change, but hey, that is not the subject here).

So, if you ever watched movie Sahara (or read the source book) and wondered what the **** is going here, this book has a same plot (ecology is replaced with state politics) about group of assassins roaming Sudan, completely inapt (although they are all very hush hush, like the Thuraya satellite phone very much (I was expecting commercial pages on this device in the book) and trained to do head stands while discharging missiles) trying to do something that they very much know makes no sense at all - but hey, they have the job to do and they will do it no matter what (remember Omega squad from Canadian Bacon?).

I know this is action thriller, equivalent to good old action movies, rational reasoning not exactly something to be found in there, but I like these when they are not so preachy on international matters and don't portray 7-year-old-GI-Joe approach to world politics (which seems to be something grown men and women tend to do in real politics these days, so maybe this was inspire by true events?). If Gray Man was acting on his own I would be OK with it, but suddenly resurfaced patriotic feelings and really pathetic cliche portrayal of Russians and Sudanese characters (did I say this reminds me of GI Joe (old school one, because some of the comics I read are actually more serious spy work than this book :))?) were truly making more damage than help. Some actions (like decision to present himself as Bosnian student on the way from Egypt to a port in Sudan across the Arab peninsula) - what was the author thinking?

I like action, but lets keep some of the Gray Matter active in it. Will continue with the series, but I hope that stories dont get more and more weird as was case here.… (plus d'informations)

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, 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.… (plus d'informations)