{"id":19522,"date":"2024-04-15T20:12:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T00:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19522"},"modified":"2024-04-15T20:12:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T00:12:12","slug":"armored-by-mark-greaney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19522","title":{"rendered":"‘Armored,’ by Mark Greaney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mark Greaney<\/strong> is the author of the very impressive Gray Man<\/em> thriller series. I\u2019ve enjoyed them, though I haven\u2019t kept up with them recently. But I saw he\u2019d started a new series, about security specialist Josh Duffy. I got a deal on Armored<\/a><\/em>, so I checked it out. Greaney still knows how to write a gripping story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Duffy, private security operative, lost a leg in Beirut, in a heroic action to protect a client\u2019s wife. This left him in the humiliating position of being unable to find any job better than mall cop. Even more embarrassing, his wife is working nights cleaning offices \u2013 and making more money than he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when he runs into an old buddy at the mall, and learns that he\u2019s been hired for a job protecting a UN delegation tasked with making peace between drug cartels in Mexico, he asks the friend to get him in. He does not tell him about his missing leg. To his surprise, he gets the job, and soon he\u2019s flying south of the border with a ragtag collection of bottom-of-the-barrel bodyguards \u2013 the company they\u2019re working for doesn\u2019t have the best reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theirs is a mission marked for disaster \u2013 and not by chance. Josh and his new buddies turn out to be nothing more than counters in a big game being played by high-level players, who have no plans to let any of them go home alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plotting a story like this one has to be a daunting task \u2013 I\u2019m not sure I could do it. The action tends toward what I like to call the \u201ccinematic\u201d \u2013 the kind you believe when you see it on a theater screen, but which seems less plausible when reading. That fortune which proverbially favors the bold requires some pretty intricate choreography of events to achieve in a story where every bend of the road brings a daunting new setback. I never entirely believed this story, but it was just believably enough \u2013 and exciting enough \u2013 to keep me riveted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed Armored <\/em>immensely, and recommend it without reservation. Cautions for language and violence. References to Christian faith are uniformly respectful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Greaney is the author of the very impressive Gray Man thriller series. I\u2019ve enjoyed them, though I haven\u2019t kept up with them recently. But I saw he\u2019d started a new series, about security specialist Josh Duffy. I got a deal on Armored, so I checked it out. Greaney still knows how to write a … Continue reading ‘Armored,’ 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":[5149,5148,1762],"class_list":["post-19522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-armored","tag-josh-duffy","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\/19522","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=19522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19523,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19522\/revisions\/19523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}