Gunmetal Gray by Mark Greaney — The Gray Man Did WHAT!? (Spoiler Book Review)

[00:00:11] Hey guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike. And welcome back to this week's No Limits: The Thriller Podcast. How you doing today, Mike? Yeah, I'm good. It feels like forever since we got a podcast in, and it was, but it also feels like forever since we've read The Gray Man, and what a treat it was to go back to that series. Yeah, it was. Yeah. I know, I feel like, yeah, first of all, welcome back. Sorry we've been on. I know you've been putting out some episodes,

[00:00:41] It hasn't been quite as a hiatus from the content perspective, but for us it's been at least a couple weeks since we've recorded. I guess since I went on vacation, we recorded right before I left for vacation. So, yeah, but we're back. Some time off. In the meantime, we got some golf in, came down and saw you. I was a little late, but I made it for, well, I only missed five holes. So, it was fun day.

[00:01:10] And we were hitting a lot of birdies until hole number six. No, I'm just like, no, we had a lot of fun. I then got two rounds in later that week because I was also on spring break. Yeah, but we did keep the content rolling. You're right, because the Angels and Demons episode came out. That was a lot of fun. Still want to watch the movie for that one. And Tyler and I were even able to interview Jack Carr about the fourth option, which comes out early May. So, we'll be reading that one.

[00:01:35] I just got my hard copy in the mail today. Yep, yep. So, big things are planned. Lots more pods coming, but the Gray Man Train. I've been trying to work in on our schedule how we get back to the Gray Man. Book number one, really fantastic. Comes off as a little bombastic, over the top, just like the movie did. You might say cartoonish, in a sense, you know, with Lloyd and everything. A little hard to believe the series. Was the action excellent? Yes.

[00:02:02] Was the writing excellent? Yes. Was the plot really a little over the top? Too much. Then on target, felt a little bit more grounded. It was really cool. I remember North Africa. I really liked some of the scenes through the little towns or even out. There was one scene they were out in a nomadic tent and he was tripping balls. Like, I was learning to love the Gray Man.

[00:02:24] But we got so busy and I wasn't sure how to come back to it. So, I asked our patrons, Mark and Chris, thank you guys. You are the Gray Man experts. They helped us lay out a reading plan of not only their favorite books in the series, but also which ones kind of introduce new characters or start new storylines that really lead to important plot development.

[00:02:43] So, we're doing one to skip a few. And the first one we're going to skip ahead to is Gunmetal Gray. Actually, I don't even know what book number it is in the series, but we skipped at least two or three, maybe even four. Yeah, I'm just trying to pull it up. Yeah. Right now. Once you do that, though, I really am curious, Chris, your reaction on this one, because I want to go read all the others.

[00:03:10] There's a six. Yeah, we skipped four or three. We skipped three. Wait, did we? And I was trying to just pull up a quick. Did we do on target? We did on target for sure. One hundred percent. OK, because it was it was the North Africa. I definitely remember a couple of scenes. He was he was lying in that tent. Do you remember that one? And he's looking up at this like design on the ceiling. Oh, yes, we did. He has a high level protectee.

[00:03:40] Like some diplomat that he's trying to protect and extricate. Yeah. Wow. I think this, though, is what really is getting me into the series. Yeah, because. All right. You said it right. The Gray Man, the first one. Had its, you know, crazy enter into the, you know, I'm entering the chat.

[00:04:05] Right. Or Mark Greeney is entering the chat, comes in guns ablaze, comes in hot in that opening scene. Like wild setup. Right. Yeah. But if you were to tell me and this is like I had no idea this is book six, you know, I'm sorry. Like I'm just crazy shit going on in my life right now, like between work, home, everything.

[00:04:29] And so. But I was just excited to read this book and we were talking about like, oh, do we. Are we going to be able to do it this week? I'm like, all right, let's push it because. And then as soon as I started listening to this book, I was hooked. Same. Same. But, you know, it's funny because we often talk about like, oh, you know, these books are written as like standalone. You could have told me this was book three. You could have told me this was book two. Yeah. Hell, you could have even told me this is book one. And.

[00:05:00] It's fantastic. Wouldn't have blinked an eye. Obviously, you don't get the benefit of like knowing the whole Fitzroy story. Exactly. But really, this book doesn't have much. Oh, I guess I can't truly say because I haven't read books three, four, five. But the Brewer character, I guess the Hanley character, like are those people that have been in other other books. Yeah. You know, they definitely weren't in.

[00:05:28] At least in what I remember from the Gray Man. But yeah, this one to me, like, you know, all right. I know people don't like it when we say this. I'm going to get shit for saying this, but it is very Mitch Rapp-esque, this book. Like, and, you know, to us, that's me saying that's like a really good compliment coming from the Mitch Rapp pod guys. Like, you know, maybe we need to come up with a different way of how we phrase that. Because I know, you know, it maybe gets some authors triggered. It triggers people.

[00:05:59] Because it, well, of course, like, and I understand maybe where they're coming from. Vince wasn't the first one to do this, right? But essentially what I'm saying when I say that, this is the most, you know, ultimate Brad Thor-esque. This is the most Tom Clancy-esque. This truly is an action spy thriller at its core. And it's a very simple plot.

[00:06:25] It shows Court in his ultimate, like, badassery. I texted in the group. It's like, I was trying to figure out, like, Mark had mentioned, like, there's one line in this book that he loves. Like, out of all the whole series. And so as I'm going along, obviously, like, my ears are peaked to try to, let me just see if I could figure it out. Right. And I figured this probably wasn't his line, but to me, this line was awesome.

[00:06:54] And it's like quintessential, you know, court, like the gray man. And Brewer goes, you fought 50 men at the same time? I was like, no, I fought 50 men one at a time. Yeah. It has that equal parts jackassery. Like, you're just kind of like a snarky clown to people. Like, that give-a-fuck attitude talking to your boss. And at the same time, you got the skills to back it up. Like, you could walk that walk.

[00:07:24] That scene in the bar is crazy. Oh, it's fantastic. That's at the harbor, right? Like, Hong Kong Harbor, like, across from the downtown. While the attack on the ship is going on with the Russians, he's, like, over here in the middle of all hell breaks loose. And, like, that to me is quintessential gray man. Like, you know, that's equivalent to that. The scene in, it was a Prague with the train where, like, all of a sudden all the assassins come in. And he's by the bench.

[00:07:53] He's handcuffed to the freaking bench, right? And he's able to get out of that. Which didn't come off great in the movie. But this one works a lot better. Like, I believe he would get out of this one. You're, like, hopping over the bar. The one in the book didn't seem as, like, outlandish as, like, when they tried to picture it in the movie. No, that's true. But there were things about him storming that castle in the first book that I was, like, okay, this is a little much. You mentioned it.

[00:08:20] Like, that book, obviously, Mark had set out to, like, all right, I'm going to set this character. And this is who he's going to be. I need to establish his bona fides. But here, we're still, like, I feel like he's toned it down a little bit. At least, like, now we're in book six. Like, we're still freaking insane what he does.

[00:08:39] I mean, even, you know, multiple times he attempts to go into a house that has, you know, six Russian SVRs along with however many, what, their entire... You got the triad guys, yeah. Yeah, like, yeah, first he's the triad. And then the water tigers. Then you got the Cambodians. Yeah. Then you got the, you know, he's literally going hopping to hopping from different... Even the Italians at the end. We're dealing with the Italian mafia. What? He's picking...

[00:09:07] He's in this book, you know, in the last one, it's like, all right, a contract kill for all the assassins. And this one, he literally brings every single mafia organization or crime syndicate, you know, on him or takes them on. Not on him, but he takes them on. I was waiting for the Yakuza to, you know, just jump in somewhere. Right. You need the Israeli mobsters. There's that... Oh, there's that movie. What was that movie?

[00:09:37] Oh, it's a recent one. Oh, man, I forget. It's with Austin Butler. And he, like... Oh, I need to look it up. It was with, like... Like Gangster v. Gangster? Yeah, exactly, because he accidentally is given some money from his friends. Like, hey, can you watch my house for a weekend? And just feed my cat. But the guy didn't fail to mention that he stole a bunch of money from these people. Oh, no. And it's in his house.

[00:10:06] And so when these guys come to pick it up... And so you have the Italian mafia. You have the Russians come in. And then you have, like, these Orthodox Jews. Like, their mafia. Like, you know, with the curls and that. And it's a funny movie. It's a funny movie. Dude, that's when you want the gray man at your side. Like, he fights off these 50 dudes in the bar, gets out of there. I really like, too, just the setting of it all. Like, choosing Southeast Asia and starting in Hong Kong, moving across.

[00:10:36] Where do we go first? We don't jump to Thailand right away. We go Vietnam, Cambodia, like the whole Mekong Delta area. End up in Thailand for the final set action piece. Both in Bangkok. Both in Phuket. I like that he stuck to that. Like, that seemed like an intentional decision. Instead of, like, jetting off to Europe. Jetting off to some random other city. Right. In the gray man movie, like, literally, how many of those title cards were thrown up? Right. Exactly. Paris.

[00:11:06] Like, whatever. Exactly. Thinking that just scores points with the audience. Where here, I think what really scores points in my book is it was grounded in that, okay, I could see they would extract him to this place or turn him over to this mafia. Or this mafia would, you know, want to protect him in this area. Or they'd move him to this safe house. Then again, we get the scene of him pretty much. Well, one, they were on the river. So they're both going down the river after they got taken by the Thai organized crime group.

[00:11:35] And prior to that, they were going up the trails. They were escaping. It felt like Jack Carr's book, the Vietnam one, Cry Havoc. Now, that scene in Cry Havoc was so good. So I'm not going to try to compare these two. But at the same time, I almost felt that I was in the same environment. Like both writers did it so good to place us in that area. I felt like I was back reading Cry Havoc on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

[00:12:04] Not in the 70s this time and not surrounded by, you know, VC and everything. But I just really enjoyed not only being in Hong Kong, the city, but then not also just seeing the glitz and glam of Hong Kong. Because he talks about how it's lit up. It's like New York City on steroids. But then we went to the darker underbelly of it all, like across the harbor where you're looking at the downtown. I just thought that was a really smart decision to put us in Hong Kong, but then kind of take us to the seedy underbelly.

[00:12:32] And then similarly, we go into the jungles, but then we're also torn to Bangkok and then we're brought to the coastline. It really did like this whirlwind tour while also feeling grounded that you're not doing it for no reason or just to score cheap points. So I really like setting. And all that led me to like the buy-in more because something else I'm getting in a Gray Man book is the over-the-top bombastic Gray Man just fighting his way out of a crowd of people.

[00:13:01] But also I like that we're almost in his head thinking through his next move. There seems to be these scenes where he's like actively deciding I'm going to play spy and keep my cover. And he really keeps that up, like he's a good spy. But then we get to hear his decision making of why he's going to drop cover. He's like, this cover isn't going to last much longer. So now I'm actually going to do something that will expose me. And once I'm exposed, I have these three options.

[00:13:25] Or we go to a new setting and we actually get dialogue where, well, in his head, but he's thinking, what can I use to get out of here? Like we watch the plans being built. And I feel like some series, they just have their main character jump into the action, do something so super cool and badass. But we didn't really see the planning and thinking where the Gray Man is so on top of it. He's five steps ahead. One of them is he puts the marble tile down his shirt, like knowing he's going into a gun battle with no protection, no armor. And then that tile saves his life.

[00:13:56] Another one with the girl, he or no. Well, let's talk the pen. Early on, he realizes if I take the pen, that kind is going to trace me and I'm just supposed to be some no name businessman who's here and not actually a spy. So I can't take this pen from them because if I get found out with that, they'll know. So, you know, I shouldn't be carrying that if I were just an average businessman with the thing in it. Then also how he knew she went through the bag. That was a little surprise. She went through his bag and he knew that.

[00:14:26] I just really like how we see the Gray Man, not only as a badass killer, but this really good spy. But we also see him as a person by being inside his head. And that comes through really once he's with Zoya and his relationship with her and how he really wants to convince her. One, he's one of the good guys. He's not just the agency guy who's going to tow the party line and screw you over.

[00:14:47] He really we were in his psyche as he tried to show her who he was truly and not just who he was as an assassin, a hired killer, a CIA hand, but who he was as a person. And I think that, again, to make the Mitch Rapp comparison, I think what we like so much about Mitch Rapp is who he is, not just as a killer, but who he is as a guy who desires a family, a guy who wants to build. He wants the people to trust him. Like Mitch Rapp's reputation is that people trust him.

[00:15:17] He doesn't screw people over when he makes a deal or he says he's going to do something. He's honest. And I think the Gray Man wants to show that's also his code. And I don't think you turn Zoya. I don't think, one, you get the girl, but I don't think you also get her to work with you, get her to come to your side. Basically, now she's also a CIA contract killer. You don't get her to make that turn unless you genuinely and authentically try to show her who you are. And I think he did that in their scenes together.

[00:15:47] Yeah. And, you know, I guess it's personal to me. I can't remember how in Quartet we were in the first two books. But for some reason, this one sticks out to be that we're in his head a little bit more. Yeah. That we're getting a little bit more. I guess maybe that's why this book feels a little more grounded. Because we're not as bomb. Like, yeah, we have our major set pieces, but we're not as bombastic as the first two books.

[00:16:15] We're, you know, it's a little bit more of a grounded story. Like, obviously a little bit more plausible story. I agree with you, like, that Mark gets the setting 100% correct. 100%. I like the conscious choice to stay in, you know, one general area of the world. And I'm glad you picked up on it, because I picked it up on two.

[00:16:43] Like, this, this, have this feeling of, yeah, we're not just in, like, the normal parts. But I really, like, you know, not that I felt that I was there. But I felt like I've seen a movie that, like, has perfectly encaptured that, you know. Sure. It was very cinematic in the way that he described a lot of the setting. You know, through the forest, out of the forest, back into a major city.

[00:17:10] You know, something that not every author does. And so, definitely want to give kudos to that. But yeah, I think, you know, this makes me want to read more of them. Agreed. I love this book. Like, it was a great read. Like, a quick read. Not because we crammed it. But, you know, it just is very propelling. Like, the story itself is, you want to, like, find out what the next shoe to drop is.

[00:17:40] It has a, you know, it has a couple twists and turns through. Sure. And I think another angle of why that works so well is the cast of characters. We kind of talked about the gray man of it all. A little bit of the Zoya of it all. But I also am intrigued by the Suzanne Brewer. And we don't really learn who she is until the end. But along the way, I like the pacing of how many check-ins there are with them verifying each other with their code words on the phone calls.

[00:18:08] You get the sense that something fishy is going on. Both Fitzroy is saying, this is bigger than you. Get out of here. You don't understand the true stakes behind what's going on. This is bad. Then there's a scene of Brewer and Hanley, the other CIA top brass. They're actually plotting. So she gets off the phone with the gray man. And we're kind of like, okay, well, maybe she has his back or maybe she has his best interest at heart. But then she goes to this Hanley and they seem to be concocting something.

[00:18:38] And so that's dropped, I feel like, just at the perfect times and intervals to not reveal the hand. And it makes the ending, it makes it land, where she comes out as just a total bitch. Like, she basically tells the gray man, you're expendable. And even this one conversation at the end on the tarmac, when they screw him over and she basically sicks Zach Hightower on him. And that's another thing that makes me want to read more of the story. I remember Zach coming in. I think it was on Target. He was introduced.

[00:19:08] And we're like, whoa, these guys are like frenemies. There's some beef. There's some history. I'm still having skipped books. I'm still not totally clear on it. But when he shows up at the end, it's like, one, that's a treat for like the series readers who know their relationship is really complicated. And it also reinforces like Susan Beru is a bitch. Like she's sicked your friend on you.

[00:19:33] And both her and your friend or your colleague, however you describe their relationship, are basically being, they're sassing you up. They're like ribbing on you. At one point, he even is like, he's like, so I'm just a pawn in all this. She's like, no, you're just one of many pawns. You're not more, you're not more special than anybody, more or less special than anybody else. Of course I used you. I used you like I would have used anybody to get the mission done. I was like, oh, my God.

[00:19:59] And someone's like his whole team of people who presumably, and again, I don't know, he operated with at the end, are basically there to take him in, screw him over. He's telling the Chinese guy, like, I wanted to get you to Taiwan. I want to respect your wishes. Like that was not fake when I was telling you I cared about you and I wanted to extract you for your own sake. Like, and now the Americans just screw you over and take you anyway. And Court thought he won. He got Fitz. He got the Chinese guy out.

[00:20:28] He basically satisfied the mission enough for Suzanne Brewer. And then they still screw him over. Like, I felt for Court in that moment that he just, he couldn't get a win after everything he just went through. He thought he figured out the puzzle. And she just became a total bitch. What did you think about her throughout the book? Didn't like her. Yeah. It's just something that rubbed me away, like, the wrong way from, like, the very beginning.

[00:20:52] She just seemed like, you know, especially the way she, I guess some of the dialogue that Greeny put in her head. But, like, no, she can get back to her career. She definitely like a career. Like, just, like, could, knew that she was going to, sure, if she was going to help the Greeny in any way, it had to serve her means first. Her and Hanley make me want to read a lot more of this series. Yeah, and that's what's interesting, right?

[00:21:22] Like, that's what I was most confused about. And maybe I'm hoping that it would be clear is, like, how do we go from, you know, the events of the Gray Man to, like, now he's working for the CIA, you know, again. And is comfortable not being a solo player anymore, you know, because it's brought up a couple times. I was like, he's not used to this, but he's willing to do it, like, you know, for America. I'm like, so how do we get to that point?

[00:21:48] And that's probably, like, the biggest piece we're probably missing, or at least I hope we're missing, would be explained more. But also, you're right. That dynamic makes me want to see, you know, does she become an enemy in the future? Do they ever become, like, you know, do they have a relationship where they're friends? Like, you know, what comes of this makes me want to read more, too.

[00:22:16] Yeah, and it's weird because at the end, he basically has free reign to go do whatever he wants, going to take a vacation, take a break. I think he's hoping to reconnect with Zoya at one point, and she's going to start working for the CIA. Presumably, that's what we're told. Are, one, they ever going to cross paths? Is Zoya going to be a major player? And is Suzanne Brewer ever going to be his handler again?

[00:22:39] And if not, his handler, because the trust is broken, is she ever going to be involved in ops that he's on? So I thought throughout the book, she was set up to be the next handler for him. And they were going to have a rocky relationship, have to work stuff out. But then with the ending of the book, I'm like, is he ever going to want to work for her again? Like, or is he just going to keep his distance? Is he going to keep his distance from the CIA? Right. I thought the book really left me wanting just enough, because even this Hanley guy, they had a conversation.

[00:23:10] The whole time, he's also. But I think him and Gray Man have a bit of respect for each other at the same time. Yeah, that's the interesting part. Like, you know, there's that conversation where, so he's the, he's not the director of the CIA, but he's, I guess, the director of the clandestine service. Special activities, yeah, clandestine service, yeah. So, you know, obviously one of the top three people at the agency, and he has to go to this meeting and pulls him out.

[00:23:36] And they have this meeting where, you know, he's like fighting for the, she wants to pull the gray man out. Like, you know, he's too much of a liability. Like, he's burned. We can't. And he's like, no, like, let him do what he does. That's why we brought him in in the first place. But at the very same time, he's like, we can, he can never find out because he will come to get you if he finds out. Like, that's right. No one's safe. Yeah.

[00:24:05] And so he even mentions early on, or like, might be a dialogue in his head where he thinks that Brewer could eventually be the CIA director one day. Right. Or take his role, at least, you know, in the future that he sees that she is, he, even though he is her boss at the moment, he wants to be tied to her coat wings, you know, going forward. Like, you know, knowing that she will eventually, you know, rise the ranks and surpass him. So I could, I could see it going both ways where. Same.

[00:24:34] She's an antagonist to court in the future, being like a top brass, or they come around with each other. I don't know. Or could it be this off again, on again relationship? Another angle that makes it hard for me to read is she, she does drop even after she kind of like belittles him. She drops, don't you want a straight shooter like me who's going to actually play ball? Like, if I was just here to pump up your tires, would you really want that, the person in charge of you?

[00:25:01] Like, you should want me to just be no nonsense all about the mission, because that's what you need to do to be successful. That's what you need to stay alive, is you should want me to be successful. And so if I'm being, you know, rough around the edges, if I'm being a little bit of a prick, you should hope for that. You know, it almost makes me a better supervisor for you. And I was like, I guess maybe they'll work together.

[00:25:26] I just, that ending really just pulled the rug out from under me and it pulled out the rug out from court like twice. Not that he gets, he does get bested, I guess you could say. But there's two moments where I'm like, one, nobody, you know, nobody fucks with the gray man and survives. But Zoya gets the drop on him. Zoya does. Like, she completely surprises him when she's undercover as that prostitute in the fire and he's trying to save them.

[00:25:54] But that, so that was like, okay, she's here to stay. When that happened, I was like, okay, Zoya's one, really good. And two, I think there's a story to tell about the two of them together. But then at the same time, Brewer, the whole time I thought like, oh, I want to see where this goes. Now at the end, I'm like, get out of my face. Like, I don't want any more of you. So I like, it's not that she got the drop on court. It's that she was using him as a puppet the whole time. And that rubs me very differently than Zoya had the skills to go up against him.

[00:26:23] She even tested him, right? When she did spray him with the pen or was hoping to spray him with the pen after going through his bag, he ultimately had the goods on her. He knew what she was up to. He wanted to test her loyalty as well. But that cat and mouse game works when it's operator to operator. Like, you expect them to feel each other out. It's game respects game, you know? So I liked it there. But Suzanne, I just did not like it. I do not know what to think of her.

[00:26:50] People who know the series are probably screaming, oh, my God, she's like the most important character. Or she could be a nobody. Who goes away tomorrow? Right. I don't know. Well, yeah, exactly. It makes me want more. That's the thing. Yeah. No, it does. It does. Should we scorecard it? Is there anything else we're missing? Yeah, it's really good. I think we can pull out some of the things we missed if we go through the scorecard. Yeah.

[00:27:15] Could be prisoner of the moment, but I'm expecting a higher score than we gave to Gray Man, book one, and On Target, book two. So On Target, we gave it, I've had it pulled up. Low 40s, I would guess. 39 and a 39 and a half. Okay. What do we have with Gray Man? Gray Man's probably similar territory just because the buy-in. It could be low 40s. Pulling it up.

[00:27:45] See, that score for On Target, though, tells me a lot. I remember finishing On Target and saying it was good. Did books one and two do enough to make me want to commit to 20 or whatever they're up to now? Yeah, 18, 19. I don't think it did. When did we do? Oh, we did the Gray Man. That was our 17th episode of the... Thriller pod? 38. Exactly. So neither of them cracked 40. Our buy-ins were one for the Gray Man. Yeah.

[00:28:15] Our buy-ins were higher for On Target. Do you also feel after those two books, we didn't have the impetus to want to go off and do the whole series and commit to it? Like, it didn't do enough to get there. This one does. This one absolutely does. I'm going to be honest. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of why it took us so long to revisit. You know, I feel like if we had read this one earlier, hell, this might be the Mitch Rapp season three of No Limits season three, the Gray Man podcast. Yeah.

[00:28:44] It's kind of like the moments where we were at Brad Thor's lowest. I'm like, I wish we had a book like this. You know, when we were going through some of those Scott Harvath books that didn't really hit. I was like, damn, we just needed a book like this caliber. So. Yeah, for sure. This one brings me back. What do you say? Action. And while we're at it, why don't you tell us your favorite action scene? Ooh, that's a tough one. I think it's, it's gotta be the, the bar fight.

[00:29:13] I think so. Yeah. Like that, that one's just sick. I mean, you probably could say, I mean, cause he doesn't do much fighting in that like farmhouse. He kind of like just sits by the generator. Well, it's pretty bad-ass when he doesn't even realize that he was about to get shot and then he turns around and shoots the generator and explodes it, you know, kind of out of sheer luck. He gets out of that one. But that, that whole sequence is, is awesome.

[00:29:41] And the Russians at the same time in that sequence, when they're moving on the house, he's watching them move on the house. That was phenomenal. There's multiple times where they both show up and have no idea that each other are there and, you know, just stumble upon each other. Um, you know, the hotel or the nightclub scene. Sure. With the fire and the prostitutes. With the fire and the prostitutes. Yeah. That was good. But that was where I was like, is this getting a little. But then she gets the drop on him. So.

[00:30:11] So that was the scene at the nightclub where I was like, is it going a little off the rails? Cause if everything he's been through and now he's just going to pose as some party boy, play boy at this, at this club and then go into the pools in the back. And I was just like, okay, this, this is starting to borderline be a little too getting into it. But then when the thing happened with the girls and that led to him meeting up with Zoya and then she turns on him. That's when that scene fell into place for me. So I liked that one. Right.

[00:30:39] But I'm with you, the Hong Kong Harbor stuff with the, with the CD underbelly and the try, I guess they were triads. I don't remember, but that stuff really worked for me and the bar fight and his escape. That was phenomenal. All right. So what do you, what are we giving it for action? The action even goes up right to the end though with the cliff and boarding the boat, the, the, the Genoese boat. I think it's a solid nine.

[00:31:09] Yeah. I think it is. I'm going nine as well. It's really good plot. Now we should back up and talk about in general, did it work for you that this whole thing is motivated by the Chinese hacker group, the three, one, nine something group, and how they have a red cell unit who is supposed to be looking for vulnerabilities in the Chinese government system. And for me that worked.

[00:31:38] What did you think about basically this whole plot is driven by the guy who knows everything about China's vulnerabilities trying to defect or be taken by intelligence services? It was interesting, you know, like, and like that added a different wrinkle to it all in terms of, excuse me, in terms of, um, you know, motivations for, you know, this guy, like,

[00:32:04] I guess the, the whole bigger plot of how this was all actually orchestrated by the CIA, like that was a crazy twist and turn at the very end. Um, the fact that you have, you know, the guy who, you know, was actually, he was part of the CIA. They, the CIA had his parents killed. He had the parents. That's good. Um, yeah. Super intense. Like that, that I saw that came out of left field. The parent thing. Yeah. That phone call to me was a turning point in the book where I was like, Oh, something else

[00:32:34] is going on here. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And the whole idea of collateral, right? Like they didn't want anybody on the rel red cell team that they couldn't threaten with something like they moved their whole family into like government, um, government watch like housing and stuff. And now that he had no family, no ties, no bonds, they couldn't really pressure or control him anymore. I thought that was real interesting, which is probably also pretty accurate. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:06] It makes you wonder who are our assets that are too important to be taken and what is their protection like? That's it. Do we have people who know too much? Yeah. That's a scary thought, man. Yeah. Oh, and who's out to get them? Like who's living among us? Well, yeah. And you, you got to imagine that like grabbing a guy who is skilled at penetrating the Chinese,

[00:33:31] like, you know, like I'm sure we have people who are on our side who are there. It's their job to penetrate like our systems. Yeah. And so those would be the exact same people you don't want to want to make sure do not get out of hand, right? Not get taken. Yeah. Because they're the ones that know how to get in. It's one thing to pick up someone who is good at just getting into other systems, but it's another thing to, you know, someone who's an expert in getting into your own system, right? And knows every, exactly, knows everything about it. All the ins and outs.

[00:34:01] Yeah. That's an intelligence goldmine. Do we even have like, you know, do we even have someone like that? Or is it so segregated, you know? Because of how, if you had someone that did that, the risk of them being, turn, the risk of them being taken is too great. But that's also always the concern with any intelligence organization that involves like techies. I mean, think of like an Edward Snowden or somebody, right?

[00:34:31] Like, once they get the access to do the things you need them to do, they are also by default the wild card who you won't know what they're doing. If they're that good with the systems and they have access, they're good enough to hide from you. They're good enough to cover their tracks and you don't know what they're doing in the system, but you need them to access the system. Dude, that's crazy stuff. And then there's big companies. You know, there's a lot of money in that with, what's that is company?

[00:35:02] Palantir. Palantir. Well, yeah, there's Pegasus, but then there's Palantir. And it's like, how much do they have access to? And how much money are they getting? And we think we have a constitution. I don't know if we actually, we might have a constitution on paper, but. You know, it's great. I, you know, speaking of like rights and stuff, I just read this whole story about how

[00:35:31] Sony and Samsung made more money last year selling our data than they did selling TVs. Oh, completely. I think the. And it's all data they get from our TVs. From being smart TVs. When they're selling you a smart TV, they don't really give a shit that you're buying a TV. They care that you're going to click OK or that you're not going to notice by default somewhere in the contract of you plugged in this device.

[00:35:59] You are then automatically consenting to our collection of data. That's the only reason. Samsung will take pictures, take screenshots. Yep. And upload that of what you're watching and send it off. That is literally the only reason they're selling you the hardware, the actual devices. One crazy part about it is if you go in and turn it off every, every time it like updates. Yeah. It turns itself back. It just puts itself back. Right.

[00:36:29] And, and what are you really turning off? Like, let's be honest. Yeah. Yeah. And every company is the same way. I mean, I'm sure the internet of things, Google speakers. Yeah. Siri. Google home. Siri. Instagram. Yeah. It's all marketing and, and a big part of it that motivates it is data for advertisement sake. So it's all a marketing advertisement ploy, which seems harmless, but that can be manipulated. It could be, it could be exploited.

[00:36:59] It could be exploited so easily. Exactly. Dude. I mean, it's one thing to be like told, all right, me and Caroline are talking about some new shoes and then boom. Yeah. Like it shows up in my Instagram. All right. Exactly. I don't love it, but it's another thing to be like, be force fed me. Like, oh, we only want this person to buy this stuff. So we're going to then only, you know, put that into his algorithm.

[00:37:28] Dude, extrapolate it. And since we're talking China, social credit score, you know, they can innocuously say, oh, it's digital ID. So it's easier for you to, I don't know, buy alcohol, buy a lottery ticket, you know, cross a border. Get on a train. Oh, you just do it all with your phone. Like, that's easy. Okay. But like, who has your biometric data now? And I just think, and then what if your social credit score, which is like, oh, but what if you make a good purchase for the environment? You cut down your electricity bill or whatever. Okay. Sure. Whatever. Okay.

[00:37:58] But what if social credit score is now what your speakers are picking up, what you're talking about in your private life is going to affect now if you can get credit to buy a house or you said something at home or it heard something you were listening to. And it's like, oh, this person's into that. We're going to deny you a service, a government service or whatever. Scary. Have you seen Black Mirror? No, but I need to. Oh, there's this one episode of Black Mirror with Bryce Dallas Howard.

[00:38:28] Black Mirror is in it. And it's essentially if, you know, your Uber score, like you both rate your Uber driver and they rate you. Yeah. But that's like on everything it happens. And that like determines, you know, where you can shop, where you, you know, even people that you hang out with each other, like you're, oh, I can't be seen with a two. Like you're a two. Yeah. Dude, that's real though. Like that's China right now. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:59] Oh, scary stuff. Did we give our plot score? After all that. No, we did not give our plot score. I don't know. I think the plot here was solid. I'm going to go eight. I'm with you. Yeah. My two point ding is just one too many criminal organizations. This guy handed off to that guy who intercepted this guy and they actually wanted him to work in a room somewhere, you know, making them money, doing all his techie stuff. One too many.

[00:39:29] He fell into the wrong hands one too many times. If there was like one prisoner exchange, like one group got him and like sold him to the next group or something or moved him to one or two safe houses. No problem. But by the like, it felt like the seventh or eighth time that happened. It just, it just felt like a little much. And then at the end to just here, it's actually the Italians, right? The Italian mafia has them now on some boat and they're working with the, I don't even know, the water dragons or whatever group we're up to.

[00:39:57] The Thai organized crime, just one too many. So only a two point ding, still love the rest of it. Buy in. Are you bought in, Mike? I was bought in and I finished the book in, I want to say 48 hours. Yes, because we had to for the pod, but I quickly realized I wanted to keep going. So I think it's a four. I think it's a four. Yeah. I, you know, not to copy it, but I'm, I'm full.

[00:40:26] I'm, I'm there. And I think like, you know, maybe a little bit of, little bit tweaks for the air, like to ding at one point is, is, is valid. For the most part, this is like one of the most believable out of the three Grayman books. This is like the most believable of, of, of the three. Yep. The one that I'm most in, in invested in wanting to, wanting to, wanting to finish the book in the first place. And then also most invested in wanting to make me read more Grayman books.

[00:40:56] Completely agree. It, it pulled that off. Yeah. I wish that was a category on the scorecard because this one would get bonus points of, did it wet your whistle? Did it make you, did it draw you into the wider universe? Absolutely. Bar none. This is the book that will get me hooked on Grayman. All right. You want to put together good guys and bad guys? You can kind of separate them out here. I think. What do you think? Yeah.

[00:41:24] So I, would you say the bad guys are the CIA operatives and Colonel Dye and the Russians? Or the Russians less so? The CIA guys as good guys. I think, well, I think, I think because knowing who the Grayman is, I think we have to put them in the gray zone of, they're good, not so good. So I think they add to my villain score, to be honest with you.

[00:41:53] Like the way Brewer and Hanley, I don't feel they can be trusted. Yeah. The way they all turn on him at the end when the team is sending to nab him. I feel like all that actually boosts the villain score a little because Dye was good enough as a Chinese villain. Like, I don't know if I totally bought into that he really was torturing Fitz. Like he was, he cut his fingers off in the end. We learned that was true. But it was almost just a little too much of that. That, is that really enough to keep the Grayman in it?

[00:42:23] And is he actually going to torture him all that badly? It didn't seem to have the stakes of like a five out of five villain. A five out of five villain who's torturing your guy, who is, you know, holding something over the main character protagonist. That is next level. And I don't think Colonel Dye had that. Would you agree? Not a big bad?

[00:42:47] No, but I do think that the intrigue of the Brewer and Hanley and trying to figure out like what ultimately their end game is with this adds to the mystique of the bad guys. Agreed. In some way, like I agree with you, it kind of like elevates that score a little bit. Yeah. Hmm. I think it's like a three and a half. I was going to say three and a half. Four sounds a little generous. So three and a half is good for me.

[00:43:17] We're going to be the exact same score here. I'm going to do the opposite with the Russians. When the Russians are operating, it's almost reading very much like a SEAL team operating, you know, or any, a Delta team, whatever. In these books, you typically have a team of operators with call signs, with names, with radio checks. They're using all the lingo, and we're literally watching them go in as a team and, you know, leapfrog one another. And one's got Overwatch and one's the sniper. All of that is happening with the Russians, so it feels really familiar.

[00:43:47] And yes, they're the bad guys. Yes, they're the ones Court is up against. So they're villains. But I'm going to kind of group it into good guys just in the way that it read. It felt like you're with the team. And that team isn't really hurting our guy. Not really like shooting at our guy, not killing our guy. They're not there to get a court, right? Exactly. I mean, ultimately, if court got in their way, they're going to take them out. But they just happen to be trying to get the same target that Court's trying to get.

[00:44:14] They're like the bad guys not so bad, the same way the CIA is the good guys not so good. So I think what really drives the good guy score for me is the—I've been saying her name wrong. Zoya. I think that's one of those. Zoya. Oh, with all the Russian names. Like Vasily. Yeah, exactly. All the different Russian names I was confused with. And she had a full name, but I think she goes by Zoya in short.

[00:44:43] Zoya to me, the interesting cat and mouse game that—it's almost like the Batman and Catwoman relationship going on. Like you're not quite sure if—are they lovers? Are they enemies? Yeah. Like, you know, that to me elevates the good guy score. Like for me, she was like my most favorite quote-unquote good guy outside the great man. Completely.

[00:45:06] And so I'm going to give another three and a half there. I think that she deserved that. I was going to round it up. I was going to give the four for that. I think she—at first I was apprehensive. I like the fact that she was kind of like an outsider with the operators because the operators were whoever they were. You tell she was different from the very beginning. And she was intel, right. She was like the intel person. So she was supposed to be like the analyst or— But she could handle her own, yeah.

[00:45:36] But she could handle it. But the guys didn't let her into that club. Like she even said I think she passed the Spetsnaz training. But they were like, yeah, no, you're still not a tier one level operator. So she had the goods, kept on the outside. But she still got to prove her worth and prove her mettle multiple times. So I liked her on the ops. I liked her personally with Court. I liked the cat and mouse game, like you said. Perfect analogy with Batman, Catwoman. I thought all that, in fact, might be the best part of the book.

[00:46:05] Their conversations, their relationship building, outside a few of the set action pieces. Because another thing she did, she was a vehicle to grow Court, to see another side of Court, that I don't think the book was initially getting to. I remember in the first half, something I said to myself is, this book is A++ on action and the plot and this Chinese hacker guy. Like I'm bought into everything.

[00:46:32] I'm not getting enough who Court is, what motivates him, what his tics are. We're seeing glimpses of it. But I was like, okay, it's the same kind of guy. I wanted an arc here. And I think Zoya really kicked off an arc for him in this book. She kind of like changed him, made us see a different side of him. And like the first part of the mission in Hong Kong, he was a spy spy. He was an assassin, undercover as a spy, who had to keep his persona, couldn't break rank,

[00:47:02] had to think through everything, meticulously plan out where he was, how he looked, how he talked, who he was seen with. And all that was like so much fun. But I was like, let's peel back the layers of him, the onion of him. And Zoya got us there. And it took half the book. And it was almost refreshing when he almost let down his guard a little bit with her. But he really didn't. Not like his operator guard. But he let down like his emotional guard with her a little. And I thought that was another side of him, which propelled the book forward in a good way.

[00:47:31] Because if he just kept doing badass stuff straight through and through, I would have been like, okay, cool. I kind of remember this from the first two gray men. It's fine. But she brought out another side. It's different. Yep. I appreciate that. I give kudos for that. So four out of five. All right. You want to? We talked about it. Oh. Yeah. Settings of five. Settings of five. Yeah. We talked about it. I already put you down for a five. Yeah.

[00:48:00] Now, the cover, I actually didn't even look at. So I only saw the audio book cover. So I actually am not even clear on what the full cover is. I have no idea what I'm going to score this. There's a big pet peeve. Oh, no. And like if you look at the audio book cover, it's kind of hidden. But when you now, because it has like this only from audible. Stripe covering up. Right, right, right. So I like the, you know, gunmetal, gunmetal gray.

[00:48:30] It's got a gun hole in it. I'm digging all that. Yeah. Obviously, the top right corner is, I guess they're going for some sort of Asian high rises. That works for me. Hong Kong and the skyline. Lower is DC. DC. Is that the monument? That's Washington. That's the Washington Monument. And where are those steps?

[00:48:58] Where can you walk up from those steps? Is that like from the metro? Or it almost like the, no, it's not the Vietnam Wall. I'm thinking of the way the Vietnam Wall kind of goes into the ground. Either way, it makes no sense for this book. They're not in DC at all. Unless it's Hanley back at Langley. No, but that's supposed to be the gray man. A little tiny shadow figure in the corner completely bums me out. Oh, it almost makes me want to go back and give points elsewhere because this is a really good book.

[00:49:28] I know. But the cover is going to bring me down. We have dinged these covers hard. No, we dinged these covers, but I dinged a couple other categories and I was hoping we would make it up late. So what's interesting, right? This book deserves to be a 45. It really does. They did a redo. If you go look at like the next one down, I'm guessing it's like a republish. It's essentially a widened out version of that top corner high rise. Yeah. So that's the whole book.

[00:49:57] Like I much prefer that. I don't really know why there's a helicopter there. Yeah. We do all go on a helicopter, but that's not in an urban setting. It's in the Mekong Delta, but. What about this other one where, again, shadow figure just walking through like a dingy dark, almost looks like a harbor with that fence on the left. Yes. I actually really like this one. And the clouds. That definitely is. Yep.

[00:50:23] It gives me the Bangkok, Hong Kong, like, you know, hazy morning sunrise in the harbor feel. Yeah. I like that one the best. I like that one a lot. It's a little drab, but so is some of the setting in this book. There's another one where he's, it's a man walking out of a tunnel and it looks, I think that's a famous Hong Kong, the shadow of a famous Hong Kong skyscraper.

[00:50:55] So going for that. That would work for me. That would help. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the fifth one down. Again, this is good. You stopped making your little thumbnails. Yeah. No, I haven't kept up with, yeah, exactly. With different, different thumbnails now for YouTube. I haven't done the one with the books. We also get the orange cover with the skyline. I, I, I kind of like that one. Here's another problem. It's very similar to the other one.

[00:51:22] Just like bring in more of the orange. Yeah. Can you sell me on the title? Gunmetal Gray. Is that, does that fit this book? No. It really doesn't. I think that that's like a, I mean, I, I, what year was this book written? It's a cool title, but I don't know if it's a cool title for this book. Judge a title by the book.

[00:51:52] This book came out in 2017. Oh, is it that recent? Gray, all the Gray Man books have been that recent. Interesting. To be only book six in the series. I don't know, man, if these covers and this title even fit the book. Like even the bullet hole just on the drab gray. I don't know what that is. Metal slab. Well, that's crazy because it's book six, 2017.

[00:52:22] But I'm like, yeah, 2017. But 2017 was nine years ago. I mean, that's the, yeah, that's true. And I know Mark Graney's been pumping them out. And he also had some of the Clancyverse books at one point. So. Yeah. He's had one a year. So Gray Man came out in 29, 2009. On Target, 2010. Ballistic, 11. Dead Eye. Two-year gap, 13.

[00:52:48] Then a three-year gap to book five. And then since book five, he's been on one a year. Now, with our reading schedule, we skipped a couple of those. We even skipped Backblast, book number five, which Mark has said is his favorite in the series. So that's one that maybe we do eventually try to squeeze in. And it would be cool to see, like, is anything about Brewer or Hanley? Is that all, like, in the works?

[00:53:14] Do we see him, you know, falling out with the CIA and then coming back to take contract work with them? His ups and downs with the CIA, is that explored prior to this book? Zach Hightower, how he makes an appearance at the end here. I remember him from on Target. What's their operational status like in the in-between? So I feel like if we're going to go back, Backblast is the one we got to go back to. So I'm guessing Gunmetal Gray is a play on, like, the gray man. Sure.

[00:53:44] There's another book in the series called Midnight Black. Yeah, fair. Like, it makes sense. So you're just coming up with, like, maybe he was just walking through the paint aisle at Lowe's and saw... Yeah. Saw the name of a color and, like, oh, that's... That sticks out to me. That'd be a cool book title. The same way we do judge a book. I just wish it... Has... Yeah. Nothing to do with the book. No, not at all.

[00:54:12] The cover in no way, except for those apartment buildings in the top right corner, doesn't tell me anything about the Southeast Asia of it all. Like, think of the Cry Havoc cover, right? You know exactly what you're in for. I'm not even going to... I mean, I know it's like the initial... We should give the most credence to the... First one. Initial one. But... No. I like some of the other ones better a lot that I'm not going to... Like, initially, I was going to give it a one.

[00:54:42] But I'm going to be generous. I think I'm going to give it... Like, a two and a half. Yeah. Yeah. You give me two and a half as well. Yeah. Like I said, this book is good enough to deserve a couple of brownie points sprinkled here and there. I'm actually kind of disappointed we're lower than 45. Because in my mind, this book was so enjoyable to read. We obviously on the pod pick it apart. Our listeners know that's what we're here for. But I think it deserves like a mid-40 score. And where do we end up?

[00:55:12] Probably a little lower than that is going to be my guess. Wow. I have a 40.5. I think I'm a little higher. And you're like a 41. 41, yeah. Fair. At least it broke the 40 mark. But I think for what this book does, at least drawing me into the series, it's deserving of a few extra points. I would toss a few bones back at it if we could. Yeah.

[00:55:42] Maybe the cover dinged it really bad. It did. It did. It could have been a 44 or 45 with a perfect cover. So let's end with this. Let's end with the positive. Accentuate the positive. What was your favorite book? What's the winner of this one? I think what I love is Quartz's attitude.

[00:56:07] And I think that's what makes this series different in the sense that Grinny really is able to... Each author needs to establish their person's identity or their person's personality, right? Their character's personality. And stick to it. And his smugness, his humor is just great.

[00:56:37] There's one line where he's in the middle of the desert. He's in the middle of the jungle. And he's able to steal that phone by biting the little Ziploc bag out of the guy's crotch and jump over. We didn't even talk about that. Jump over. Like swan dive out of this boat. Hang on to it. That's right. While they're shooting at him. Get away.

[00:57:02] And, you know, he swims on the shore, goes to make a call to Brewer and is like, no signal. Figures. You know, it's like funny little one-off lines like that. You know, I think that's a signature thing that we don't really see in some of our other novels where they add... Greeny adds a decent amount of humor to the Greyman character. Yeah, the Greyman doesn't take himself too seriously. And I really like that.

[00:57:31] Even though he's a very serious guy. He's a very serious guy of keeping himself alive and, you know, committing to what he says he's going to do. But he almost... It's kind of like Jovial in how he approaches things, even though he's in the thick of it. Like... Yeah, and he's also like not a... You know, he's a killer, but he's like not a ruthless guy. He's not a dick. Consciously makes the decision to go back and save the... Like he can't not save those hookers. Or they're not hookers. They're...

[00:58:00] I mean, he even mentions that they're probably... Right. That's true. ...being human trafficked. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fair. So, you know, feels a little sympathy for him. And there's some other instances where he just... He can't... Doesn't want to put the lives of innocent people at... At risk. So he definitely has morals, which I like. Yep. So that is highlighted in a few things with Zoya. Why, again, I think she's such a great vehicle to propel a lot forward is...

[00:58:29] She even asks him, have you ever killed an innocent person? And his response is very, very reflective. And she picks up on that. And he's like, yeah, it did. And she was like, did it make it easier that you could say you were just, you know, following orders? He goes, nope. Like... Didn't... Doesn't really help a lot for me to find solace in the fact that I was just doing my mission. Like, no. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

[00:58:56] You know, the whole I was just following orders is not going to fly. That's not the great man's approach to things. And I think, yeah, that consistency in his character is really awesome. Now, you mentioned a couple of one-liners. And yes, the humorous one-liners are gems. They're phenomenal. I really appreciate Mark Greeny's writing for that. But equally so are the in-the-thick-of-it lines right in the heat of battle where Gray Man's just like up against it. And there were a few of these. And this was the one you referenced earlier that Mark said was his favorite line of all time.

[00:59:26] Nobody was going to get into a knife fight with the Gray Man if he had a gun. So there was a few times where he was like, I need to find a gun. Or like in the thick of it, he was thinking, what can my improvised weapon be? He's like, this is good enough, but wish I had a gun. And he knew any situation, once he got his hands on a gun, he had the upper hand. Like, it didn't matter. 50 guys in a bar coming at him with knives from whatever gang. Doesn't matter. And then similarly, later on, everything was different now because the Gray Man had a gun.

[00:59:54] Like, even the lines in the thick of battle, like when the tables turn, when the tide turns, when he gets the upper hand, it's just a lot of fun. So Mark Rainey's writing, the one-liners, the humor, the character of the Gray Man, all hits. I think it's fantastic. But overall, my winner is Zoya. Yeah, I left it for you. Such. Appreciate that because such a strong entrance. The female character, when you have this really larger than life. I feel like you did the female character very well.

[01:00:24] Very well. You can get the larger than life protagonist right. And almost everyone does, right? You're not becoming a best-selling author like this without a really bang-on, awesome protagonist. But it's amazing when you can bring in the girl, when you can have the second-tier person or the equal in some ways. You know, equally as good in operations, equally as good in a fight. And you could sell the audience on that. You can make that believable.

[01:00:50] And you're not just forcing that person in as a plot device because you need them. You need the protagonist to have this character with them. And when it happened so naturally, like Mark Rainey was able to pull off here, I bought into Zoya. I respected Zoya. I enjoyed her. And then even their relationship, like them playing coy with each other and ultimately sleeping together. You could roll your eyes at that if it's not done well. And here, I think it was done expertly. Yeah. So I 100% agree.

[01:01:20] Great book. This one gets me bought in. We were able to steal all these when they went on sale with Amazon so we can consume them all. Exclusive on Audible. So next Audible sale, make sure you're buying all the Gray Man. Now, we have them all, but our reading list, like I said, we pared it down. We did one, two, skip a few. Next one up is Chaos Agent.

[01:01:46] And then again, with Mark and Chris's guidance in the patron group chat, we wanted to skip a few so we can get to the most recent. So we're going to go Chaos Agent, Midnight Black, and then The Hardline. Very excited to get to the most recent 2026 release, The Hardline. And I've heard so much good buzz about it. So another reason we're skipping ahead is because we really want to get to the current books to be able to review some of the books that you guys might already be up to. Yeah, and then we can obviously go back. We can keep going.

[01:02:15] And we can keep going. So now every year we can do the next Gray Man as well. That's another perk. Add it to our docket. Exactly. It's a good standalone, too. This book, it's made better if you know at the end what Zack Hightower is about or you know every time he's talking about. That's what I'm saying. This book is an amazing standalone. Great standalone. I feel like I often don't have – I say that, but I don't really have enough credence to say it because I'm not reading it as a standalone.

[01:02:41] But truly, I read this as a standalone because I don't – you know, we skipped so many. And I really don't remember Alan Target at all. I think the one thing is Fitzroy. You'd be like this old British dude that he cares about. Why does he care? From The Gray Man. Exactly. The original one. Which I think was an added bonus, but I think I would have been bought in anyway even if I didn't know him from The Gray Man. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. We're back at it. We're the Chaos Agent.

[01:03:10] We also were interviewing an author. Do you want to tell the – The world about this one. Coming out later in the year. We got a couple months. I think it's in the fall. Beyond Honor by K.B. Brodsky. And that is actually a husband and wife team who are writing their first debut novel and got the deal with Simon & Schuster. So from all that I'm hearing, it's a great book. These guys really have the goods. And just thinking a husband and wife co-authoring situation sounds pretty neat.

[01:03:37] So we're actually going to interview them before we even read the book, talk to them a little bit later about what the publishing process was like, and come back with them afterwards and do a spoiler-filled episode review with the husband and wife team as well. So we're going to have like a three-part series with them for their coming book. And amidst all that, we got to do the Angels and Demons movie. We talked about that. Yes. And I think Da Vinci Code has to be on the list as well at some point. And Fourth Option is coming up in May. Sure.

[01:04:08] Yeah. A little Jack Carr. So a lot happening the next few months on Thriller Pod. All right, guys. Well, before we get out of here, we need to thank our patrons, Sherry F. and Brad E., our deputy directors. Yes. Our special agents. Crowley Clark. We've got a new deputy director. Welcome, Crowley. Let's add them to the— Can't wait to hang out with you at our next patron group chat and also to read your coming book.

[01:04:38] So we'll keep that on the back burner as well whenever that one's ready to launch. We've got our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl, George, Matt, Dawn, and Chris. Please subscribe, rate, and review to all three seasons of No Limits. Find us at ThrillerPod.com or on Twitter and Instagram at ThrillerPodcast. And as always, just let court be court.