The Gray Man (novel)

Court Gentry, known as the Gray Man, assassinates the Nigerian minister of energy in Syria. Escaping into nearby Iraq, he rescues the lone survivor of a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter shot down by local Al-Qaeda forces.

Gentry's handler Sir Donald Fitzroy is visited by Lloyd, a lawyer and former CIA officer working for the French conglomerate LaurentGroup, at his office in London. Lloyd demands that Fitzroy eliminate Gentry for killing the energy minister, a condition set by the Nigerian president (who is the minister's brother) before signing a contract with LaurentGroup to commence natural gas operations in his country. To ensure his compliance, Lloyd has Fitzroy's son, daughter-in-law, and twin granddaughters kidnapped and taken to a château in Normandy, France.

Fitzroy reluctantly orders Gentry's exfiltration team to kill him, but he manages to kill them all. Gentry then goes to nearby Turkey and boards a flight to Prague, Czech Republic. He identifies and kills an Albanian hit squad, one of twelve sent by Lloyd from around the world to eliminate him for a $20 million bounty. Gentry calls Fitzroy, who tells him that the Nigerians had kidnapped his family. Gentry decides to go to Normandy and rescue them.

Gentry makes a stop at Budapest, Hungary to obtain a forged passport from counterfeiter Laszlo Szabo, who had crossed paths with Gentry when he was part of a CIA paramilitary team. Szabo betrays him to the CIA, who had issued a shoot-on-sight directive on Gentry four years ago. He then demands a ransom from Fitzroy as Lloyd sends in an Indonesian hit squad. Gentry manages to escape from Szabo's trap as a CIA paramilitary team gets into a gunfight with the Indonesians, with Szabo killed in the crossfire.

Gentry next goes to a weapons cache in the mountains of Guarda, Switzerland known only to him and Fitzroy, but flees empty handed after an attack by a Libyan hit squad. Now aware that his handler had betrayed him, Lloyd threatens to release classified files on Gentry and his former CIA paramilitary colleagues unless he continues to Normandy. Court then takes a train to nearby Geneva, but he is arrested by local police for the attack at Guarda. A Venezuelan hit squad opens fire on the police, allowing Gentry to escape.

Gentry continues on foot to Geneva and meets with his former CIA instructor Maurice, who provides him with weapons and a car. He escapes just as a South African hit squad enters the house and corners Maurice, who sets off a gas explosion killing them all. Meanwhile, Fitzroy's son was killed after trying to chase one of his daughters who had tried to escape the chateau. LaurentGroup official Kurt Riegel, who had gathered the hit squads together in the hunt for Gentry, arrives in Normandy to salvage the operation.

Gentry arrives in Paris, France, where Riegel had summoned the rest of the hit teams. He is stabbed by a South Korean assassin, whom he later kills after a struggle, and jumps into the Seine River. Gentry makes contact with one of Fitzroy's French contacts, who hastily treats his injuries as he drives to Normandy. Gentry infiltrates the château, battling the remaining hit squads as the deadline for his capture passes and the Nigerian president signs the natural gas contract with LaurentGroup's competitor. He destroys the CIA personnel files and rescues Fitzroy and his family. He is cornered by Lloyd, who is then shot dead by Riegel. Riegel's boss Marc Laurent arrives at the château and offers Gentry a job: assassinating the Nigerian president.

• Courtland "Court" Gentry: aka the Gray Man; the former CIA Special Activities Division (Ground Branch) paramilitary operations officer; former operative of the CIA's Autonomous Asset Development Program
• Sir Donald Fitzroy: The owner of Cheltenham Security Services; a former MI5 (British domestic intelligence) officer
• Lloyd Hansen: The lawyer for LaurentGroup; a former CIA officer
• Kurt Riegel: The vice president, Security Risk Management Operations, LaurentGroup
• The Tech: The communications specialist, LaurentGroup
• Laszlo Szabo: The counterfeiter
• Song Park Kim: A NIS (South Korean intelligence) operative
• Maurice: The former instructor at the CIA's Autonomous Asset Development Program
• Phillip Fitzroy: Sir Donald Fitzroy's son; the real estate developer
• Elise Fitzroy: Phillip Fitzroy's wife
• Claire Fitzroy: Phillip Fitzroy's daughter
• Kate Fitzroy: Phillip Fitzroy's daughter; Claire's twin sister
• Marc Laurent: The CEO, LaurentGroup
• Dr. Isaac Abubaker: The Nigerian minister of energy
• Julius Abubaker: The President of Nigeria

Greaney previously worked as a waiter and bartender for ten years,^[1] then later in a surgical technology company, while working on two novels in his spare time. After finishing one of them, titled Goon Squad^[2] and was primarily about the aftermath of the Bosnian civil war, he gave the first 20 pages of his work to his favorite author Ralph Peters's agent, Scott Miller, in a book conference in September 2006. Miller liked the book but later did not go forward with it, saying that "it was unmarketable," according to Greaney. But he urged Greaney to write another one based from a character in Goon Squad named Court Gentry,^[2] which would later be The Gray Man. After finishing this novel, Miller agreed to represent him, and later found a publisher, Jove Books.^[3][4]

Publishers Weekly reviewed the book: "Cinematic battles and escapes fill out the simplistic but satisfying plot, and Greaney deftly provides small details to show Gentry's human side, offset by the petty rivalries and greed of his enemies."^[5]