From Mark Greaney, the New York Times bestselling author of Mission Critical and a coauthor of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels, comes another high-stakes thriller featuring the world’s most dangerous assassin: the Gray Man.
While on a mission to Croatia, Court Gentry uncovers a human trafficking operation. The trail leads from the Balkans all the way back to Hollywood.
Court is determined to shut it down, but his CIA handlers have other plans. The criminal ringleader has actionable intelligence about a potentially devastating terrorist attack on the US. The CIA won’t move until they have that intel. It’s a moral balancing act with Court at the pivot point.
“[One Minute Out] cements Mark Greaney’s status as a preeminent storyteller whose thrillers continue to resound on multiple levels…Court Gentry is this generation’s James Bond, and his latest adventure is not to be missed.”
“In bestseller Greaney’s remarkable ninth Gray Man novel (after 2019’s Mission Critical), Courtland Gentry (aka The Gray Man) takes on the Consortium, an international sex slave cartel, the existence of which he stumbles on while committing a hit on a Serbian strongman. A former CIA employee, Gentry fell out of favor to the point that the agency was trying to kill him, and after getting that misunderstanding straightened out, the agency is still kind of trying to kill him, though he works as an off-the-books assassin in a secret CIA program called Poison Apple. Never mind his official status. What’s important is that he’s probably the greatest assassin in the world, and those who oppose him usually end up dead. In this case, he decides to defy his bosses and hunt down the men who are part of the Consortium, running his own op with no help other than that from Talyssa Corbu, a junior analyst for Europol, whose sister the sex traffickers have captured. As always, Gentry is up to the task. Spy thriller fans will be enthralled.”
“Ex-CIA Agent Courtland Gentry (the Gray Man) has Serbian war criminal Ratko Babic in his gun sight, but when he decides instead to kill the old beast face to face, he uncovers a massive sex-slavery ring. “I don’t get off on this,” the Gray Man lies to the reader as he stabs a sentry. “I only kill bad people.” Of course he does. If there weren’t an endless supply of them to slay, he’d have little reason to live. Now, countless young Eastern European women are being lured into sexual slavery and fed into an international pipeline, sold worldwide through “the Consortium.” Bad guys refer to their captives as products, not people. They are “merchandise,” but their plight haunts the Gray Man, so of course he is going to rescue as many women as he can. The road to their salvation will be paved with the dead as he enlists a team of fighters to strike the enemy, which includes a South African dude who is giddy for the chance to meet and kill the Gray Man. Meanwhile, Europol analyst Talyssa Corbu meets the hero while on a personal mission to rescue her sister. “You don’t seem like a psychopath,” she tells him. Indeed, though he could play one on TV. Corbu and her sister are tough and likable characters while the director of the Consortium leads a double life as family man and flesh merchant. Human trafficking is an enormous real-life problem, so it’s satisfying to witness our larger-than-life protagonist put his combat skills to good use. There will be a sequel, of course. As a friend tells the wounded Gentry at the end, he’ll be off killing bozos again before he knows it. Great storytelling about the pursuit of extrajudicial justice.”
Gornji Crnacÿ, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The grandfather of six stood on his front porch, a cup of tea in hand as he looked out across the valley at the green hills, thinking of the old days.
They didn’t seem so long ago, but still he often wondered where they had gone.
The warm afternoon tired him, and he considered a nap before dinner. It was something an old man would think to do, and this bothered him a little, because he didn’t really consider himself old.
At seventy-five he was in robust health for his age, but back when he was young he had been truly strong and able physically, as well as a man of great power in his community.
But those days were long past. These days he lived here on this farm, never ever ventured off it, and he questioned if his labors in life had amounted to much of anything at all.
Money was no problem-he had more than he could ever spend-but he often pondered his purpose here on Earth. He’d most definitely had a purpose once, a cause he believed in, but now life amounted to little more than his easy work, his occasional pleasures, and the strict rules he’d adopted to live out his days in quiet and in peace.
Another day here, he told himself, reflecting on both the years and the decisions he’d made in life. Good decisions all, of this he was certain. He was not a man to harbor doubts about his actions.
But he was painfully aware that the decisions he’d made had come with a high cost.
