{"id":12742,"date":"2019-08-27T20:20:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T00:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12742"},"modified":"2019-08-27T20:20:59","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T00:20:59","slug":"gunmetal-gray-by-mark-greaney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12742","title":{"rendered":"‘Gunmetal Gray,’ by Mark Greaney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Another Gray Man novel <\/strong>by Mark Greaney. The books make no claim to literary excellence or psychological depth. They\u2019re just action movies in print form, low on credibility but high on entertainment value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basics of super-operative Court Gentry\u2019s life have changed in Gunmetal Gray<\/a><\/em>. (By the way, this use of the term \u201cgunmetal\u201d annoys me a little. Everyone assumes \u2013 as I did at first \u2013 that the word \u201cgunmetal\u201d refers to the color of iron or steel. Because that\u2019s what we make guns out of today. But originally [I looked it up once] it referred to a yellow color, the color of brass \u2013 because that\u2019s what cannons used to be made of. Not that anyone cares anymore.) Anyway, Court Gentry is back in the good graces of the CIA, not as a regular agent but as a deniable private contractor. This situation, though one he\u2019s longed for for years, is not as good as he imagined, as he will soon learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Chinese army computer hacker named Fan Jiang has defected.\nHe had intended to run to Taiwan, but ended up in the hands of Hong Kong\ngangsters. The Chinese contracted with Sir Donald Fitzroy, an old (though\nestranged) friend of Court\u2019s, to retrieve Fan. Sir Donald\u2019s first two teams got\nkilled, and so he asked Court to step in. The Chinese have added an incentive \u2013\nthey\u2019ve kidnapped Sir Donald, and promise to kill him if he can\u2019t get the job\ncompleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court takes the job, with the CIA\u2019s encouragement. They don\u2019t\ncare about Sir Donald \u2013 they want Fan for themselves. Court, though, plans to\ndo it his own way \u2013 to divert Fan to the Americans while rescuing Sir Donald.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piece of cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the plot sounds kind of convoluted, it is. I found a lot\nof the book unengaging \u2013 you\u2019ve got a couple kinds of gangsters plus the\nChinese and the Russians (I didn\u2019t mention the Russians before), and Court\nhimself, running around bumping into one another like characters in a French\nbedroom farce \u2013 except bloodier. It was kind of hard to tell the players apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It got better toward the end, when Court paired up with a\nbeautiful Russian operative who\u2019s sort of a distaff image of himself (sparks\nfly). At that point my interest returned. Court comes out looking pretty good,\nthough otherwise it\u2019s hard to tell the white hats from the black in this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of cynicism about the CIA (no doubt justified), there\u2019s a basic morality and American patriotism in the Gray Man books that please me. I recommend Gunmetal Gray<\/em> if you\u2019re a fan of this kind of story, though it’s not the best of the series. Cautions for language, violence, and some off-stage sex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Gray Man novel by Mark Greaney. The books make no claim to literary excellence or psychological depth. They\u2019re just action movies in print form, low on credibility but high on entertainment value. The basics of super-operative Court Gentry\u2019s life have changed in Gunmetal Gray. (By the way, this use of the term \u201cgunmetal\u201d annoys … Continue reading ‘Gunmetal Gray,’ by Mark Greaney<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[581,1132,1762],"class_list":["post-12742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-court-gentry","tag-gunmetal-gray","tag-mark-greaney"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}