Book Review: ‘Gunmetal Gray’ A Gray Man Novel Is Your Typical Action Novel

Mark Greaney (who’s been writing Jack Ryan books) is back with his Gray Man series character of Court Gentry. Gunmetal Gray (in stores Tuesday, February 14; from Berkley Hardcover) is your typical shoot em up, action thriller. Court is a mix between Jason Bourne and James Bond. There’s no situation he can’t seem to get out of.

After five years on the run, Court is back working with the CIA. He’s sent to Hong Kong to find Fan Jiang, a computer warfare expert that has escaped from the Chinese. They want him dead. The Russians and the United States both want him. He just wants to go to Taiwan and escape this craziness. Court also finds that his old friend Donald Fitzroy is being held by the Chinese. Court infiltrates the organization and goes to work for them to find Fan (while secretly working for the CIA).

He tracks him down on a few occasions only to also find out that there’s a Russian squad after him and the Chinese are also one step behind them (even though Court is suppose to be on the case). After many shootouts and dangerous situations over a few different countries, Court finally gets Fan, only to have to lose him again.

He soon captures a beautiful Russian female operative and convinces her to team up with him. Her mission to get Fan failed and she would be killed most likely if the Russians find her. They track down Fan and set on a final mission to grab him. Court also learns he’s been lied to and used by the CIA in their efforts to find Fan. It all comes down to one final showdown and ultimate betrayal.

Court is a fun character to read. This is my second book in the series I have read. As I said above it’s your standard story (like pretty much every other type book like this in the genre). My only complaint is there’s no reason for this to be almost 500 pages. I really wish the editors, writers and publishers would take that into account with these type of books (looking at your Jack Ryan novels). There’s a lot of down pages that I was able to scan and skip over that had no bearing on the story. And there really was one too many shootouts. This could have easily have been 350 to 400 page!

Still if you like a good action, thriller pick it up!