Recent Reading List: The Gray Man

Ok. I admit it. I was wrong about this book.

When I started it, I thought this was going to be your typical 'big bad spy guy doing big bad spy guy things that only gun nuts would care about' type book. It sort of had that vibe to it a few pages in, but, since I was prepared to hate it when I started, I see now that my initial gut feeling was grossly out of place.

The Gray Man by Mark Greaney turned out to be a really fun and exciting read. The author provides the reader with enough detail to provide interest in the weaponry and tactics hero Court Gentry uses to accomplish his mission without trying to impress the reader with a smorgasbord of unnecessary factoids. The geography and city descriptions follow the same suit – enough to “put you there” without boring you to tears describing each and every cobble in a Paris alleyway, for instance.

The main character is not some god-like and completely unbelievable construct of innate superhuman abilities. As well trained and capable as he is in his craft, it quickly becomes obvious that he is neither flawless nor immortal (which is why I read it to the end instead of instantly dropping it).

That said, there is a little bit of a 'Deus ex Machina' feel to a end-of-the-book, umm, “conflict resolution”, but I do not want to post any more to prevent spoiling any of the action for those of you who might pick this up.

I am notoriously bad for being able to tell what would make a good movie from reading a book. For example, I remember thinking as I was enjoying the book Jurassic Park may years ago that “there is no way they could make a decent movie out of this”. But, for what it's worth, I would be very interested in seeing them turn this into a “Bourne-Identity-slash-Taken” screenplay as soon as possible.