Agent in Place (Gray Man)

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As our conversation pivoted towards Courtland ‘The Gray Man’ Gentry, I asked Mark about writing his first book (which he did at a popular coffee chain each morning), and how he came up with the name for his series protagonist. Agent In Place is a story about a former CIA paramilitary officer working on a freelance contract for an organization fighting against the evil Syrian regime,” said Greaney when I asked him to explain what the book is about. “His work takes him from Western Europe directly into the heart of the Syrian Civil War, one of the most dangerous places on earth. While completely snowed in Friday afternoon, thanks to ‘Snowmageddon 2018’, I was able to reach New York Times bestselling author Mark Greaney by telephone from my home office here in southwest Michigan.

The audiobook version of Agent in Place is performed by Jay Snyder, just like all the other books in this awesome series. He is the perfect narrator to give life to Court Gentry. Jay fills the listener with a sense of urgency and keeps him glued to the earbuds for hours on end. If you choose the audiobook, you will find yourself immersed in Court’s adventures, ignoring phone calls, people talking around and with you and forgetting that you still had some work scheduled, at least that was what happened to me in the 4 days it took me to finish the book. Again, it’s just something that I thought was cool,” admitted Mark. “It’s actually the name of a Depeche Mode album. I’m not a big Depeche Mode fan or whatever, but I remember seeing that album and thinking, around the same time that I was trying to come up with a callsign for Court, that I had to give it to him.” 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.

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I told my editor after my sixth book that it might be time for me to hang it up,” confessed Greaney. “The truth is that I was afraid I was going to run out of things to do. An Agent in Place is set almost entirely in Moscow in the mid-1980s. Glasnost is afoot, but the CIA spymasters don't want the Cold War to end and put them out of work, so they set in motion a scheme designed to take down Gorbachev. The scheme involves a few US Embassy officials and a Russian family: the poet Zenaida, her "soon-to-be-ex-husband" Vadim, and her elderly father and 11-year-old son. It 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. 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.”

I've read quite a few Littell novels and I've always been puzzled with their inconsistency. He's written one of the books on my 'favorites of all time' shelf, The Company, but the rest of his output is up and down.

They are not my forces, they are military forces that belong to the government.… I don't own them. I am president, I don't own the country, so they are not my forces.” – Bashir Al – Assad. Full Force and Effect was a fun one because the research was fascinating to do, and I got the book in on time, so my blood pressure stayed nice and low. So, yeah, that was probably my favorite.” As for Court himself, I liked him. He is a genuine guy with ‘a heart of gold’….a fact which we are reminded a little too much about throughout the novel. He was easy to like and his intentions were honorable but again, I didn’t like being told that on a regular basis. Characters? Quite a few standouts this time around but for brevity’s sake, I shall focus on four. First, Courtland Gentry. Gentry in this story has an interesting character arc of sorts, one that is self-serving but noble in a strange way. After book 7 where he got rudely reacquainted with the dubious nature of the work he had once done as a government employee, in this story we start with him trying to find a job that will boot his spirits and reaffirm his idealism, a morally righteous mission that will be achieved for his own damn satisfaction, rather than that of his new handler in Langley whom he grew to hate after their first run together. He gets more than he bargained for, finding himself agreeing to an ultimate high-risk proposition which would kill any ordinary soldier or intelligence officer after a week.

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. Survival. That is the whole reason for being when it comes down to it. Survival does have its darker side however, making one capable of doing monstrous and horrifying things out of petty, sheer opportunism. Such is the lot of the Levanter in Damascus whose opportunism has kept him alive and has allowed him to triumph in the Syrian Civil War but has also caused the biggest refugee crisis since the WW2 displacement of millions of Europeans. But in Agent in Place however, sometimes opportunism is not enough. Sometimes, honouring one’s commitments even in the face of massive odds like Courtland Gentry does is how one can truly survive and live to die another day.Fans of RPG, Hong Kong action films, and high-octane storytelling will love the Gray Man, who battles full-bore through this fast-paced series.”— The Washington Post Give things from your inventory to your agent and have it build stuff for you. Use the The book had a working title of Weaponized, and was originally centered on Court Gentry trying to stop the transport of sarin gas into Syria. But Greaney said: “That was already going on, and I just felt like by the time this book comes out, the Syrian government gassing their people was going to have been going on for years. Once I changed that, ‘Weaponized’ no longer meant anything to the story.” The title Agent in Place was suggested by his editor Tom Colgan, who thought fit the story, since the term refers to an operative who has penetrated into an intelligence target, which is Gentry’s role in the novel. Things take a complicated turn when Bianca refuses to help the Free Syrian Army, revealing that she recently gave birth to a son who, against her wishes, is still inside Syria — which has been reduced to a chaotic war zone. For the mistress to comply, she demands the Halabys find a way to have her son rescued and brought to her. It’s an impossible task, no doubt, and the Halabys know just the person for the job. 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…

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Known for being one of the nicest guys in publishing, Mark, who was battling an illness when we talked for about an hour, was gracious with his time just a few days before he’s slated to leave his Memphis home and hit the road for his upcoming Agent in Placebook tour. 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. 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.” Hired by a couple who represent a group of well-connected Syrians hellbent on toppling the regime of Ahmed al-Azzam, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Court Gentry is given the information of a private apartment in Paris where Bianca Medina, the president’s twenty-six-year-old secret mistress, is currently staying.Desperate to earn her cooperation, the Halabys try to retask Gentry with another job: spirit away Medina's infant son from Syria in what is considered a suicide mission, which Court initially refuses. He later rescues the Halabys from being tortured for Medina's whereabouts by two French police officers sent by Swiss bank consultant & Shakira's right-hand man Sebastian Drexler. Court then agrees to rescue Medina's son as well as his babysitter, named Yasmin, from Damascus after she allows him to do so. The author researched for the novel on location in Paris, France and did some research on the Syrian Civil War. Greaney points out that Agent in Place is different from previous Gray Man novels: “Court’s motivations are different this time out. He has new allies and new enemies, and you’ll meet some new characters you can expect to see in later installments.” He furthermore stated, “It’s a spy novel and an action novel, but at its core, it’s a story about valor and vengeance, and the perseverance of the human spirit despite the horrors of war.” [2] Reception [ edit ] Commercial [ edit ] Greaney also explained that this book is different from previous books because “Court’s motivations are different this time out. He has new allies and new enemies, and you’ll meet some new characters you can expect to see in later installments.” It hit number eleven in hardcover and number ten on e-book,” Greaney told me, before launching into a funny and touching story involving his elderly aunt. Unusual, yes. But Courtland, as Greaney’s fans know, goes by several names. There’s “Sierra Six,” the “Gray Man,” and then, my personal favorite, his callsign. . . “Violator.”