Agent in Place (Gray Man)

Product Information

The novel begins with an excellent textbook use of in media res. Gentry is in the biggest jam of his life, watching Daesh Islamofacists take a bit off the top with a blade at the edge of a nice lake that is being filled with corpses. Gentry is hog tied alongside a Syrian ally of his watching heads literally roll. The Gray Man is then dragged for his own photo op and we’re left wondering how he will survive as we begin the story proper a few months previously. In one of the biggest graveyards in Paris, Gentry attends a meeting with an elderly Syrian Doctor. The man is an exile, a revolutionary, albeit one who has much to be modest about. Running an NGO that provides humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees the doctor’s organization has decided to strike a great blow for the Syrian people against the regime that seems to have triumphed utterly against its citizens whose will it is on the verge of breaking. Knowing that they themselves do not have the experience to strike such a blow, a deal is cut with officials of the French government who proceed to hire a professional private consultant in such matters. Then there was a female lead attached for a while before that fell through too, and Greaney told me he loves the actress — even if the script didn’t follow his book. The It’s kind of weird with Hollywood. The first option I sold for The Gray Man was in 2009, two months before the first book came out. Now here we are and it’s 2018 and they still haven’t filmed it, but different studios have wanted it, I’ve talked to different directors, they’ve flown me out to California, and all these things happen. I’m just hoping that it finally gets traction and goes forward.” 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.

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.

In all honesty I have not read all "Gray Man Books", but read a few and love this character. I believe the more you read in a series, the more you enjoy the character as you understand his/her personality. Mark Greaney is on my list of favourite authors and most of these are action thriller authors, as well as gripping police thriller authors. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, especially his treatment of the Syrian Civil War. He animated this conflict including how mercenary groups are coordinated and deployed. So he is working on behalf of a connected group of Syrian expats to secure the Syrian president's mistress so they can use her to bring down the president's regime. But the expats' plan goes wrong when it's discovered the mistress has a baby--the Syrian president's only male heir--hidden away in a Damascus safe house.

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. As Greaney touched on in this interview, Gentry is free to take assignments from the CIA or do his own thing. In Agent in Place, he’s on his own after accepting a job from a group of well-connected Syrian expats. The next day, Court and Abdul, as well as other prisoners, were brought to a lake to be executed one by one by their captors. When it became his turn to be executed, Court manages to break free and then kills his executioners, while Abdul and the other prisoners disable their guards. Court and Abdul were then rescued by the Special Forces unit, who tell them that Azzam had died from his gunshot wound.Court delivers Bianca Medina to the rebels, but his job doesn't end there. She soon reveals that she has given birth to a son, the only heir to Azzam's rule—and a potent threat to the Syrian president's powerful wife. However a group of "magicians" feel they can handle or neutralize the threat to their livelihoods with some sleight of hand - to make the audience see what they want to see and make it come crashing down. The action takes place in mainly three areas - the American Embassy where the main character Ben has a mysterious job, the KGB (and a hawkish True Believer sect within), and a Russian/American couple caught between the two.

For a while, the studio wanted to use Charlize Theron as Court Gentry, and to change it from male to female, said Greaney. ” So they wrote a whole other script, taking that into consideration. I read it and thought it was really good, but it had nothing to do with my book. I remember thinking, ‘I’d pay to go see this,’ but it wasn’t the same plot at all or even set in the same locations.”I'm not a puppet. I wasn't made by the west to go to the west or any other country. I'm Syrian. I'm made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”- Bashir Al – Assad. In addition to my rose colored view of the world, I also have all the latest spy movies queued up ready to watch at any time. I love espionage and seeing how the darker side of government and politics works. It’s my guilty pleasure.