Q&A with Mark Greaney

By Karen Mayer

Describe how the idea of The Gray Man was born.

I spent a few months in Central America a couple of years back. Now and then I’d run into American expatriates in bars and it gave me the idea for a character; an American expat assassin, living off the grid, trained by the CIA but now operating alone, forced to dodge elements of his own government due to reasons he does not fully understand. While on the run he works as a private hit man, but he only accepts contracts against targets he deems worthy of extrajudicial execution (assassination). As the idea progressed into a novel he became Court Gentry, the Gray Man.

The settings vary greatly throughout the novel. Have you visited all of the locations?

For the most part, yes. The meat of the novel describes the Gray Man’s race against time across Europe, and I essentially covered the same ground as in the book. I ventured down back alleys in Prague, took a bus from Budapest to the Austrian border, visited a remote hilltop village in Switzerland, walked through streets and train stations in Paris and Geneva and Zurich. My field research ended, just like in the novel, at a chateau in the French countryside just south of the beaches of Normandy. I traveled alone, with a pack on my back, similar to the Gray Man himself. (Although I wasn’t hunted, wounded, exhausted, or otherwise imperiled.)

The Gray Man as a character is an extremely complex individual, displaying genuine sensitivity and stark brutality. How did he evolve in your own mind and as your wrote the book?

Yes he is complex. He was a boy without a mother, with an extremely taciturn father and has grown into manhood living and working a cruel trade in dangerous parts of the world. He hasn’t lost his humanity, he’s just become extremely good at shutting it down temporarily to do what needs to be done.

It’s not easy to tell where fact and fiction intersect in this novel, especially with regards to the foreign intelligence organizations. Do they represent real government groups?

All the foreign intelligence and paramilitary organizations portrayed in the novel are real units active today. The story sends them into the streets of Western Europe to vie for the head of the Gray Man, an extremely determined adversary. The unit in the CIA in which Gentry served, the Special Activities Division, is an actual organization, though to the best of my knowledge there is no SAD Rendition team nicknamed the Goon Squad, nor is there a division in the National Clandestine Service (formerly the Directorate of Operations) that runs singleton operators called the Autonomous Asset Development Program. The Goon Squad and AADP are my creations.

Lloyd is a particularly nasty character with seemingly little redeeming value. Did his character hold true to your original concept or did it evolve with the plot?

From the start I pictured Lloyd as smart and slick and possessing just enough charm to hide his madness. As the pressure on him is ratcheted up he becomes more and more desperate to achieve his objectives, and this desperation manifests itself in more and more cruelty. The clock is ticking on the bad guys in this book, just as it is with the good guys, and with that in mind, Lloyd is willing to go to whatever means necessary to reach his goals. I’m not a fan of ‘black hat’ bad guys; the motivation of a villain always needs to be rational to him or her, no matter how evil it may seem to the reader. Lloyd is evil, no question about it. But his actions make sense consideriong his predicament.

The Gray Man is filled with elaborate twists, turns and a fast-moving pace. What’s your process for achieving this pace and style?

The plotline itself drives the pace. I absolutely could not tell this story slowly and gently. That said, there is a lot going on here other than car chases and gun fights. Gentry’s hunt for the truth about what happened that caused the CIA to sanction his death, Sir Donald’s adroit skill in turning his captors against one another, Maurice’s pleas for Gentry to leave this life behind before it’s too late, Kurt Riegel and his professional approach to his work. Even the tradecraft employed by the large cadre of surveillance personnel as they hunt for the Gray Man throughout Europe adds a lot of texture to the novel.

The Gray Man is wounded multiple times during the novel, seemingly pushing the limits of human strength. His subsequent self-treatments, however, seem plausible. Did you have a medical consultant?

I did my own research, which included training in how to handle gunshot wounds and blood loss. There is no medical reason that a man with Court Gentry’s conditioning and experience could not survive all that happens to him in the novel. But with the injuries he suffers and the exhaustion he must fight through to continue, his will to survive would need to be absolute cast iron. In Gentry’s case he knows that two innocent children’s lives hang in the balance. He does not trust anyone to rescue them, and he simply will not allow himself to quit--knives and bullets and bombs be damned.

How long did The Gray Man take to research and write?

I believe I pounded a draft out in about six months. It was a fun book to write so it didn’t feel like it took any time at all. During that time I spent a couple of weeks in Europe; the rest was written in a coffee shop early in the morning before work.

The Gray Man’s tender relationship with Claire and Kate implies perhaps an untold story about his own past or hopes for the future. Do you think his type could ever settle down?

He thinks he could settle down, and in fact, he longs for it.  The important question is…could he truly do it?  Court Gentry has lived a life in the cold, has been trained to suspect everyone and has steeled himself against most forms of human contact. Killing is his job, obviously his moral compass does not point true North, but he operates out of a sense of duty, not a love of killing. He may not ever be able to stop because of this sense of duty, and because in his eyes, there are always those who deserve to die.

How did you handle the research for this novel?

I wanted the story to be fun and exciting and a bit over the top, but also informed and intelligent. While writing the book I was also pursuing my Masters in Intelligence Studies (and I still am!) so it was important that I incorporate actual organizations, authentic espionage tradecraft, interesting bits of real information to create this work of fiction. There is a staggering amount of knowledge one can gain in this realm from open source material, and for the most part, that’s what I used to write the novel.

What is your own experience with firearms and field training?

I’ve owned a pistol for most of my adult life, but only began working with rifles as my research began. I’ve taken quite a few private classes with handguns and rifles and learned basic gunshot wound first aid. I am the proud owner of an AR-15 and an AK-47, as well as several of the handguns used by characters in the Gray Man. Obviously I am a proponent of the 2nd amendment. Where I live it is legal to carry a gun on your person, and where I live, sadly, you would be well advised to do so.

What authors do you like to read?

There are so many greats-- I will always be, first and foremost, a fan. I usually have 3 or 4 books open and dog eared in different parts of my house. I love Daniel Silva, Frederick Forsyth, Nelson Demille, Jean LeCarre’s old stuff. Gerald Seymour and Ralph Peters are criminally underrated Thriller masters. James Rollins’ novels are smart and fun and well-paced. Dan Fesperman is quite good. I’m enjoying my first Barry Eisler novel right now and wish I’d picked him up years ago. I could go on and on.

Have you always written or did your interest in writing develop as an adult?

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but I’ve also always been lazy. Thankfully, the laziness has subsided for the most part and the love of writing remained.

Describe your writing habits.

Wow, do I have to? Okay… most weekday mornings I’m up around 5. I write for two hours or so before work, fuelling myself with a cup of coffee larger than my head. I then stumble around exhausted at work, go home and fail to accomplish anything productive. This process repeats itself till the weekend, where I write for several hours during the morning, and take care of everything else throughout the day. I am not an especially efficient writer, but I’m determined enough to keep plugging away.

Will we see The Gray Man again in another novel?

Yes. Berkley has purchased two more Court Gentry novels. Court will next return in “A Killer of Men”. There is a lot yet to know about the Gray Man, his past, his demons. I look forward to delving deeper into his psyche---and slowly revealing his complex nature.

Do you believe every fiction story holds some personal author experience? If so, what part of The Gray Man mirrors your own experiences?

That’s a tricky one to answer. Although I consider myself a positive and friendly person, I am very much a loner. I like to travel by myself, low-profile, spend my time watching people and wondering about them more than interacting with them. In Gentry’s case he does it for very legitimate personal security reasons. I, on the other hand, just enjoy studying people. But since I created the Gray Man, I often find myself “in character” thinking like a hunted man, looking for the signs of surveillance cameras or police or passersby carrying weapons. You would be surprised what’s going on around you if you began to observe your surroundings like your life depended on it.

You are new to the publishing world and followed a traditional path to publication. What advice can you share with young, unpublished writers about your experience?

Step one is write something great. If your work is good enough to sell to the public, you should be able to find an agent to represent you. I had written a couple of complete 100k-plus word manuscripts and several novellas before I felt like I had something ready to show the world. I met Scott Miller, my agent, at the first conference I ever attended. As far as getting face time with an agent, conferences are crucial. They can be expensive and nerve wracking but so can sending out hundreds of queries and waiting months and months for nothing but rejections. Go to a conference and meet a couple of agents who work in your genre. You’ll be glad you did.  Your agent will find the publisher for you once he or she agrees to represent you.

What do you hope to accomplish with this first novel?

I’m not a pretentious guy.  I just want to give the reader a great time. I hope The Gray Man delivers excitement and thrills and even some humor. I hope the reader opens the book to find a story with equal measures of darkness and light and closes the book feeling satisfied, but wishing for another hundred pages.