COURT GENTRY

Court Gentry is a freelance agent specializing in assassination.

For many years he was one of the best killers that the CIA had ever had, fearless but not reckless, deadly without being bloodthirsty. Then a frame-up happens and he is summarily dismissed and a shoot-on-sight order was put out on him. To earn a living when such a powerful organization wanted him dead, he decided to rely on his basic talents.

As a young man, Gentry had grown up watching his father, a SWAT instructor, train hundreds of men to use weapons and tactics to take down deadly opponents. When he was old enough, he began to train and became an expert in several ways to kill or maim. His skill did not prove enough to keep him out of trouble, however, and at eighteen he got into a skirmish that left three Cuban drug dealers dead. He was sentenced to a long stretch in prison.

Then the Agency stepped in with an offer. If he worked for them in a highly secret section inside Operations, his record would be expunged and his freedom restored. He took the offer and worked for them for years. Then someone felt he knew something he shouldn't, or had seen something he ought not have, and Gentry was on the out; not only was he unemployed, he was being hunted.

The offer by Sir Donald Fitzroy, head of Cheltenham Security Services, to work for him in the guise of a security consultant. Gentry agreed, knowing his form of security would be elimination. But he stipulated strange conditions for what was a mercenary killer position. He would only accept an assignment if he felt the target deserved the ultimate sentence. Even with such a limitation, the call for Gentry's talents grew as each mission proved more challenging than the one before. If Gentry took the job, the client could be assured the task would be finished.

But the kill order was still in place and Court Gentry was still unable to live a normal life so he laid low between missions and planned each job carefully to make sure no one other than the target was killed, including Gentry. He took the covername of the Gray Man, a name that grew to legendary status with each success.

As the Gray Man, he was almost ghostlike but while ghosts might try to scare, Gentry killed.

I have one small gripe about this terrific series and that is the repeated use of the expression "the Gray Man". How petty is that! This is a dynamite series, extremely well written, believable even when the events are unbelievable, fast-paced and captivating. I couldn't wait to get the finale and yet hated the thought of the book ending. And I still have that gripe? What kind of a jerk am I?

Thank you, Mr. Greaney, for a heckuva series and I so look forward to more books in it. I just read that the first book might be made into a movie and I will see it even though I doubt it will be anywhere as good as the book. I will eagerly await new books in the series. There are several series being written that I enjoy a lot. Writers like Lee Child, David Baldacci, Andrew Grant, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, James Rollins, Stephen Coonts, and Steve Berry have me consistently in their grips. Now there is another writer to add to that group - Mark Greaney.

Added note - after about book 4 when I added the series, I gave it a grade of A. Now on book 9 and loving each adventure so much, I bump it up to A+. Such a terrific, consistent, and tremendously entertaining author!