The Chaos Agent by Mark Greaney — Best AI Thriller? (Spoiler Book Review)

[00:00:16] Hey guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike. Welcome back to No Limits: The Thriller Podcast. How you doing today, Mike? You want to talk chaos? Because this book is chaos. My life is chaos right now. We'll just put it that way. We need Cyrus to figure out how to kill this mouse. If there was an AI to get a mouse out of the house, I would be the top investor right now.

[00:00:46] Like a little four-legged mini robot that had a little gun attached to it, like a little BB gun that would go and find and hunt mice. Dude, if I could have some sort of robotic dog just walking around blasting mice that could see through walls, I would give my left nut for that right now, let me tell you.

[00:01:10] I would give up the pod for that. And that's saying something, because I'm not giving up the pod for anything. But this mouse right now is testing my limits. Your limits. Oh, okay. Well, anyways, besides your mouse problems, how you doing, man? Oh, good, dude. Yeah, I gotta say, the winner of this book before we even start, not only is Mark Greaney, but it's Mark Harris.

[00:01:31] Big shout out to the patrons of this podcast, because our group of the top thriller fans around the world have been screaming, gray man, gray man, gray man from day one. Chris and Mark and so many others. And they are not wrong. Like we said it on Gunmetal Gray after book one and two, I was like, okay, yeah, I get it. I kind of see why you like this. Holy cow, after the chaos agent. I think I have to read every book in the series.

[00:01:58] Yeah. So I'm not, I'm not going to lie. Like I love this book so much. I immediately started Midnight Black. I needed another answer. I purposely, you know, I've sort of shut my brain. We're only going to talk about chaos agent. I don't want to, you know, you have, I don't want to spoil your, but these books, this arc that he's going on right now is, is amazing.

[00:02:23] And it, you know, we said it after Gunmetal Gray makes me want to go back and fill in the gaps. Now I definitely, I have, I have to go back and fill in the gaps. Right. Brewer, we were talking about Brewer last book and I'm wondering who she is. Right. Apparently there was this Jersey op, something in New Jersey that like court either got blamed for or most people suspect is him. I don't know. Like, what's this about? They say the one liner that she was crooked. She got what was coming to her. Right.

[00:02:51] She, you know, essentially telling, telling us that court killed her. So obviously I got to go back and read that. The fall of Hanley, like how he's stuck in Bogota. Like what's that about? But he still has a lot of sway. So he had, you know, he had his moments. Like he was the cream of the crop. He was, he was at the peak of his career and something happened that he just gets stashed far away in Latin America. Like.

[00:03:16] If first they put him in as a DDO and what in the Philippines or Malaysia, something like that. And then he got even demoted even more to a D like he's not even a, he's not even a chief of station. He's the deputy chief of station in Bogota. So obviously they like him so much, you know, and I think like, as we're going along in the series, I, I, I see like why, you know, like, I think the, the Matt Hanley character is, is good.

[00:03:43] You know, his, our first introduction to him in Gunmetal Gray. Again, it's like, I want to go back and see, was he in some of the other three books that we, we skipped to go to Gunmetal Gray. I want to see like, you know, build out his character a little more because obviously he's coming to the forefront.

[00:03:59] Um, this idea of, of Hightower and, you know, cause the last time we saw Hightower in Gunmetal Gray, he was, he, he was picking up court, you know, like they, you could kind of tell that they were, they had this, this love hate relationship, but now we flashed to this book and it seems like they're even, they're better, you know? Um, sure. Yeah.

[00:04:21] But I, I think ultimately like Mark telling us to, this is a good skip makes me, you know, one, we, we, we jump right from the introduction of Zoya to now having her front and center. And like, she's obviously a major player there, they're together there, they're on the run. Um, we bring back her past with, with, you know, the whole Russia experience. Um, I think it's like a, it's a good, this is kind of good, like juxtaposing these two right next to each other.

[00:04:50] Yeah. And it starts off there in love. They legit say, I love you. And it's returned. I love you too. And they're sleeping in the closet after the last book. That's like, I'm glad we jumped there. I'm sure the few books in between that had to develop. I don't know if they had space apart, you know, if the heart grew fonder because of that, or if they operated together. So I'm equally interested to find out how that relationship blossomed at both personally, them falling for each other. And then professionally, did they take jobs together?

[00:05:20] Did they go their separate ways? And did that make them realize they wanted to go on the run and they end up in Guatemala? So there's so many ways you can get there. I'm kind of interested, but I'm equally happy. We got an advancement of the Zoya arc because, yeah, especially with the bombshell ending of this book. First off throughout, I'm wondering, is this her time? Right. We skipped a few books. Was did she go through the whole journey? Did they go through the love story? And this is the end of it. Right.

[00:05:48] So I'm like, is something big going to happen with her? You know, is he going to kill her off? I'm like, I could see it happening. But then he does something that's infinitely better. So spoilers, if you haven't picked up already, we are the spoiler podcast, the after show. Right off the jump, I'm going to spoil the ending because it was phenomenal. When she got taken by the Chinese agent, it was rug out from under your feet. It was a brilliant move.

[00:06:11] And it was coming right as the book was hitting a crescendo in so many ways that I was so distracted by so much else that the fact that she would even be taken and that would lead us into the next book was so far from my mind. And I want to start Midnight Black like you already did. I'm ready to jump into it tomorrow. Yeah, I think, you know, and again, pardon me for we cover these books so intricately, like I can't help but make comparisons.

[00:06:38] But this reminds me so much of the spymaster into Backlash origin. You know, there's no death here, but, you know, someone's taken and we have a man on the run who needs to, you know, enact vengeance. What is he going to do? He's going to go find her wherever she goes. Like, you know, what are the Chinese going to do? Are they going to take her? Are they going to trade her back to Russia? Obviously, she's a wanted woman. Like, they could do whatever, you know.

[00:07:08] Well, she's in Russia. I think we're led to believe that someone divulged a plane went to Russia with her. So, yeah. So, you know, obviously, court's going to do anything to get her back. You know, like it's, you know, this book goes hand. It would be a great double read with spymaster for sure. Another thing, though, that that ending allowed, it's low-key almost the best part of the book.

[00:07:36] Low-key, it allowed the Zack Hightower moment at the very end when he kills Anton. That was so incredibly well done, that scene, when they have to walk, his team has to walk court off a ledge. And Pace has to tell him, like, the best way to get Zoya is work through the agency, work through the proper channels. Let Anton have his day in court, right? His day to spill the beans with the CIA. But court knows in his bones they're going to use him. They're going to let him be a free man.

[00:08:05] They're going to, you know, tap his brain. They're going to make him recreate Cyrus. Like, Anton is not going to get what he deserves. There's not going to be that justice moment. And court wants to kill him. Pace just walks him off the ledge, makes the agreement, right? Like, I'll do anything to get Zoya back for you. I will pull all the levers I can at the agency. And Zack's standing there and takes the job into his own hands. Like, he becomes the one to execute justice for court, knowing he will pay the price. Even perhaps the ultimate price, right?

[00:08:34] Like, a court-martial, military jail cell, rest of his life, whatever. I just think that Zack Hightower moment capped off an incredible Zack Hightower book. Let's be honest. This is a great man book. This is also a Zack Hightower book. And I've been a critic. I've been wondering if our reading plan to skip around, the biggest holes I think have been understanding Zack and him and court's relationship. I've been lost with it. In Target, he tried to kill him.

[00:09:04] Then court hated him and wanted to get back at him but didn't realize he tried to kill him because there were bad orders or something. And then they kind of bond. Then he's kind of a dick to him last book. But maybe that was just putting on a show. Maybe that was just, you know, locker room talk. I wasn't really clear. So I'm like, is this guy a frenemy? What's the deal? Well, here, they're blood brothers. And Zack sealed the deal and proved that to court, who I think already knew it.

[00:09:30] But he proved it to us, the readers, by taking action into his own hands to get justice for court and justice for Zoya. So kudos to him. I think this is a Zack Hightower book, especially like the last half and three quarters. Absolutely love it once he was brought in. Yeah, I was going to say that.

[00:09:48] Obviously, this is a Gray Man book, but there are large chunks of multiple back-to-back chapters where we just are away from court and Zoya completely. You know, we spend, first of all, it's setting up this three-part section, right? Where we're focused on the attacks, anything that's going on there. Gamma.

[00:10:12] This entity, this Gamma unit, reminds me very much so of the last Mission Impossible with the entity, right? And then we go off to, obviously, we have the whole Anton with his British, what's the British name? Ren. And then, obviously, he's the one that brings in Hightower. And we sort of have their dynamics. And then we move back.

[00:10:42] And then, ultimately, everything converges. But, you know, for a long period of time, I was like, wow, wow. Not that I was wanting more Gray Man. Like, I just, I noticed it. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. Like, obviously, Mark made a conscious choice to, I'm going to put a little bit more Hightower in here. And I had no idea. Obviously, he's one. So he's the, you know, the first in the Goon Squad. He's older. He's like, I think they say he's in his mid-50s. And he's still, like, kicking ass, taking names.

[00:11:10] I love, like, kudos to Snyder. Like, he's really good at. So good. First of all, you mentioned it last time. I love his Gray Man voice and how he just gets that. But then, you know, he puts that Southern twang on for Hightower. He's doing the different females, doing Ren. You know, I wouldn't say his New Zealand accent is that great.

[00:11:34] But, you know, like, he does a good enough job, like, mixing it up so that way you can easily tell which characters he's performing. It puts on a great performance in this book. Sure. But, yeah, this is definitely a Hightower book. It really is. And I was wondering the same thing you were. I really like that we opened up with Cort and Zoya. So, like, we know where we're at in their relationship.

[00:11:57] The closet sleeping is, like, just a perfect vehicle to tell us that this kind of loner, outsider character who's always been a bit strange. His social side has been off, if you will. Well, but now he met his match on the battlefield, and he met his match in his personal life in a good way. So I just feel like it was meant to be. I'm so glad we jumped into it seeing them together. But then it wallowed. Like, they're on the run in Central America.

[00:12:25] So many times can they have the discussion of, are we going to get caught? Should we stay on the move? Is it time to just hunker down? Should we lay down some roots? Should we be taking other jobs, getting back into the game? I feel like just as that was being stretched out enough, you get them arrested. And once they were arrested and taken to that hut, you know, where they were clearly going to be killed, and they have to turn on those local cops, and she's doing, like, backflips off, like, the windowsill. Oh, yeah. That's a crazy-ass scene.

[00:12:55] That's just a wild scene for them to get away from these cops. And at the same time, what's-his-name was just loosed on them as well. So who's the main assassin in this book? Kincaid is his first name, or his real name. Scott. Scott Kincaid. What's his call sign? Lancer. Scott Kincaid. It is Scott Kincaid. Codename Lancer. Yeah, but all that's happening right as we get introduced to a little bit more of the main villain,

[00:13:24] I guess you can call, or at least the grunt man, the assassin on the chase. And their paths are crossing. As soon as Zoya and Gentry are being kind of pulled back into the game, maybe a little forced in the way that Lancer is also sent off to get them, and then a little forced on they need Fitzroy to give them the connection to this guy in that hacienda in Tulum,

[00:13:51] which is, again, another peak of this book. If the end action scene- That's where the book goes up a level. That's a rocket ship. Correct. Yeah, I think that, you know, like we said, there's a lot of moving pieces to get all the players together, you know? Yeah. And obviously we're ultimately moving towards this crescendo where all the action is going to kick off in Cuba, and we ultimately find out, like, you know, this book has so many plot twists, it's crazy. Yeah.

[00:14:21] Because we're constantly seeing, like, you know, one assassin here, one assassination here, or we get, you know, just a paragraph about, oh, another person dies who's on this list. You know, and then we're even with Anton, thinking that he's the whole time. I guess I kind of saw it when they did that, you know, that twist. Like, but I wasn't, that did catch me off guard. I didn't think that he was, you know, bad.

[00:14:48] It was kind of, once, like, Hightower was starting to, like, feel, you know, he was starting to get sus about it, that's when I was like, oh, maybe, maybe. Yeah, when the Jamaican gangbangers were sent in, and he got shot but didn't really get shot, I was like, oh, I mean, Zach's got to realize this is an inside job. Wren, there was something else Wren did earlier that caught me off guard, but I kept ignoring this gnawing feeling because I'm like, no, he brought Hightower in. He's got to be a good guy. He's got to have the best intentions.

[00:15:15] Was it fully explained why they brought Hightower in in a satisfactory way? Maybe. They kind of needed an in at the CIA to tip them off of, are the Americans onto them? Are the Americans watching them? So they needed, like, an inside man embedded with them? I kind of got that. That worked for me. But it also threw me off from chasing Wren because I'm like, okay, if you hire Hightower and give him the keys to the kingdom, right, I'm going to trust you. But then when that Jamaican scene happened, Hightower's questioning things. Something doesn't feel right.

[00:15:43] I'm like, it was an inside shooter. And the only other guy who would have access like that to kind of take those shots would have been Wren. And then also when he started realizing there's an elevator, but he told me I can't take it or don't go near it. Or he just brushed off something on the tour. Earlier you said I have full range of everything, right? Yeah. Oh, but this elevator only goes up. It doesn't go down. This hallway over here is just an old thing from the Soviets. Like, you can just ignore that. That's when, you know, the antennae are going up. So I like how it played out.

[00:16:13] So when you obviously all that's revealed to you, then you go back and you start thinking like, oh, like you start to pick up on things that the first time around you maybe didn't think about. And we've always liked books that do that on the pod. Yeah. But, you know, it's interesting. Like, obviously there's, you know, when we bring in Fitzroy to connect Gentry to Kincaid's Handler, right? Exactly.

[00:16:39] This British guy that's in, you know, who's always wanted to run the Gray Man. Yes. And, but we get like a whole backstory on like Kincaid and Court and how they did an op together. And like I saw, I'm wondering, like, did, is that in a book somewhere a couple books ago that we just don't remember? Because obviously it's one of those like one paragraph things where, you know, they explain it.

[00:17:08] But it could just be that he's explaining it now. You know, it's backstory or it could be one of those things where if you'd read the series, you would have known about it. So again, that's another thing that makes me want to go back and fill in these gaps. It's another layer. And I think it could work either way. Even if that's not a relationship we've ever seen before, you could make up that story. And it's totally believable that they cross paths. Something was strange about it. But it is interconnected because I think it was Pace or Hanley.

[00:17:34] It was one of the two who also knew that this Kincaid or this Lancer guy was a little off the reservation. It's like, oh, yeah, when we on his free time and beating off to like the white nationalist front stuff like that. That was a little weird. But then also there was some story if he was just like killing people indiscriminately on an op and had no remorse about it. And like collateral damage had always been his thing. Like the agency already knew that. So it would make sense that court had come up against that. Right. And was like, no, I'm staying far away from that.

[00:18:02] So it checks out every time he was every time it was mentioned, it was like, oh, like Lancer has a calling card. And it typically means that, you know, people around the scene that shouldn't have been killed or targeted also got targeted. Then that other weird cutaway, the white nationalist cutaway was strange. But then there's another one of him like. He did something else like he killed somebody else in his spare time. And even how he treats a couple of those goons like Contreras is two guys like he just takes those two guys with him.

[00:18:31] They're cannon fodder. And then earlier he has another three guys. Were they Mexican nationals, I think? And he's just lipping off about them and treating them like complete junk. So there's all these little snippets where he's just steamrolling over people with a huge ego. And to have that come up against court is fantastic. Oh, yeah. And it's also like completely different when you obviously, you know, we'll we're first introduced to him when he takes like that shot on the golf course. Right. But then he's moved up to Boston, right?

[00:19:00] Where he has to. Take that kill the security guard to be able to get access to one of the AI guys. And he just offs that lady like, you know, you could like there's there's seeds planted out to know that like this is that the old lady. Yeah. Even though he's on the same level as the great man, he's he's like he doesn't have the same moral compass that the great man has. Not at all. And then combine that with Zoya as well.

[00:19:28] She she pretty much gets got because she trusted or wanted to save that that other woman in the project thinking she was just like an engineer that Anton had been using. You know, that Kimmy. Definitely rubbed me the wrong way like the entire time, especially because why does he have this like Chinese assistant? I mean, yeah, I guess she was British, but like it. I was setting up a 10. Like whenever once we found out that Anton was a bad guy, you know, ultimately he's working with the Chinese.

[00:19:57] You know, we get, you know, we get a bunch of exposition from Ren like multiple times as he's like beating up Hightower. Stating that, you know. Even though he's working with the Chinese, he's going to be able to take him over like bloody body. Yeah. You know, but yeah, I go into a room together. Yeah. Yeah, she goes into a room with Ren and Anton and Zack sees that and he's like, it's weird. Those three would need to be together right now while all this is going on. And like they didn't want Hightower there. I just like the reveal.

[00:20:25] I think everything was paced so well to reveal all that to you. It had the perfect balance of foreshadowing and foreshadowing pretty early. But the payoff isn't there until pretty late. Another thing is Cyrus's voice. Those RoboCops. I was about to say the RoboCops you meet rather early. You forget they're kind of stacked up at the complex. You get distracted by like the robot dogs and the hex copters and everything else. And all that whiz bang. And then it all culminates on the assembly line. Like we see these things being built.

[00:20:55] We see these things coming in from China, all the components. Like this is a full-blown operation that's going to lead to thousands of these things being a swarm attack army. That's unstoppable. Like it all crescendoed, but we had bits and pieces along the way that drew us in. And the Tulum attack I think proved, it was like proof of concept that this stuff works. And like even Court and Zoya up against, what was it, two dogs and a couple of drones were like really outmatched. It was a total of six drones. Yeah. They felt outmatched. Really.

[00:21:25] They were totally outmatched with that. They had to like use the fire to hide their thermal image when he jumps to the pool and he had to like scoot along the exterior, like blending in with the fire to hide. I just thought the way the technology was used while it was all new in that, what was this book? 2023 or so. I think there was a 2023 book. Yeah, it's the three, three, three years ago.

[00:21:54] We were probably just at the age of starting to hear about AI. And so it was that precipice of, is this tech sci-fi and futuristic or is it already here in its infancy stages? And the next jump, because things are increasing, you know, they always say like technology and AI development is increasing a billion folds year by year. Like it's not a linear increase. We are at the point where AI is exponentially growing. And will it ever slow down? That's a different question.

[00:22:24] But he was writing this right at the point where on that tipping point of the exponential growth is about to happen. And so some of this stuff is now, like it's not future. It seems sci-fi, but it's literally current day. Yeah. And it's possible. This book came out in February of 24. And so that's, I guess, I started using ChatGPT and like, like for real in like 2023, you know, and like. Like it was, you know, people were, it was new.

[00:22:53] Like, but now it's, it's, it's like so universal. Like it's on all of our phones already. It is just in great, like all, all these companies, like my company, like pushing us, like how can we use AI? How can we use AI? And like this book is like reading it, you know, obviously it has their, they have their weaknesses. Like, you know, but it does cause you to be a little bit scary. And ultimately I think that that's what makes Zach Hiretower's decision at the very end. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:23:23] He saw it front and center and no one, no one needed this. And it's probably going to come again, you know, because another scientist will figure it. But like, I have, I have the opportunity right now to take this guy out and not have him recreate what I just saw. Yeah. No.

[00:23:40] I can not stop that progress, but I could single-handedly slow it down and probably slow it down by years, years and or decades because the dirty work had been done with the 15 or whatever other scientists who can build this already eliminated. Yeah, exactly. This is the last hope for this technology to be put back into Pandora's box for the near future. China shouldn't have it, but maybe we also shouldn't have it. And maybe humanity shouldn't have it. And he had the power.

[00:24:09] Cort had just relinquished that power in the hope of believing Pace that this was the way to save Zoya. And Zach called bullshit on that. And he said, something bigger is at stake. And I think it still leaves Cort in a place where he can still save Zoya. Yes, Anton would have been the bigger horse trade, but... Without Zoya, though, I think Cort kills him. Like, if Zoya was there, Cort would have came in and shot him. Oh, no, yeah.

[00:24:36] The only reason Cort was convinced that he's better off alive is because they could horse trade and they can... And Cort was going to take him and not kill him, but he was going to take him so that he could deliver him up to the Chinese as a bargaining chip. So that scene had so many stakes. We just came out of a massive set action piece with incredible stakes with the Savannah complex, with the entire, like, Cuban army being wiped out and the Chinese PLF being, like, right there to invade.

[00:25:05] The Americans and the Chinese were about to murder each other with a bunch of Cubans dead. Like, a world-ending AI scenario that was going to take over every army and every, like, military vehicle on Earth and potentially control nukes. Like, we were borderline mutually assured destruction. And then what actually tugged at my heartstrings more was Cort having to contemplate, do I kidnap Anton and risk everything to go save Zoya? That, to me, mattered so much more than the AI stuff.

[00:25:35] Yeah, yeah. No, that's interesting. No, and I just... The action in this book, man, is great. And I think, you know, I think, like, perfectly placing these, you know, robo-dogs. You know, you've seen those. They're like the Boston dynamic style. If you've watched Black Mirror, there's an episode of Black Mirror that's essentially just like this. But, yeah, I think it...

[00:26:03] And then also, like, that assembly line scene with Hightower and Ren where they have to finally confront each other. And ultimately, he gets burnt by, like, some sort of soldering or... I don't know if it's some sort of... That was fantastic. Welding laser or whatever. That harkens back to, like, you know, shit. Any Die Hard, like, movie or, you know, Lethal Weapon where there's, like, a battle, like, in some sort of factory. You know, they're having to, like, dive back and forth between, like, arms swinging and stuff like that.

[00:26:32] Like, I wanted to see that on screen. Like, I would love to see this movie. I would love to see this movie. And again, in the Gray Man run of things, it's so over the top in a great way. This is over the top, but it's more believable than the first Gray Man. It is. But... And you would have to film it. Which is crazy to say that it's frickin' robot AI things that is more believable. But to me... Can you imagine Michael Bay? Michael Bay filming that scene. Can you imagine?

[00:27:02] Yeah. Well, because it reminds me... It harkens back to, like, iRobot, you know? Like, 100%. Oh, all the things. And that's the funny thing is that every single move had shadows of the being done before, like, kind of derivatives. A little bit. It had shadows of it, like, you could... It could be Terminator, right? This could be Jurassic Park. Are we building something that we don't understand? We can build it, but should we build it?

[00:27:27] You've got an almost trope villain in this white nationalist crazy assassin guy who thinks he can do whatever he want to people. You got a little bit of a trope in Anton. Once he comes out of his shell and says, I'm the save the world... You just don't... You just don't understand, right? Like, my plan is just because I'm smarter and figured out that this is the way it has to be. All of these things have been done before. Robots killing people have been done before.

[00:27:52] AI, even as new as it is, has essentially been done and been thought out before. But at the same time, Mark Craney just nails it. It makes it feel fresh. Makes it feel different. Even if there's things that feel familiar, we're doing it in such a fun way that it all feels new. And just the texture of the universe being so big and so grand with who knows who, who helped who, who's involved in what way, who has what side of the story that you don't.

[00:28:22] It adds a layer to it that makes it pop and everything just feels fresh and dynamic. Like, hats off. I've said in the group chat, this is absolutely a 45 plus on the scorecard baseline. You cannot go lower on it, anybody. The question is, how much higher do we go? But there are no dings on this that I can possibly say are going to bring us down more than a half a point here. Chaos Action is by far the my favorite Gray Man book I've read so far. 100%.

[00:28:52] I'm going to agree. I think Gunmetal Gray is a very close second, but it's such a different feel. These books have such a different vibe. Yeah, man. They have almost 10 years, not quite 10 years, eight years in between each other. And you can obviously see how much progression he's made in his writing style. It's obviously still very similar, but there's definitely been some progression there.

[00:29:19] I also thought it was awesome to juxtapose this new age setting, putting it in this locale. They're in Cuba. There's even a reference to an AI version of the Bay of Pigs. They're in an old Soviet bunker that was used to house all... It had all these old satellite dishes that were no longer being used back in the day.

[00:29:46] Just to harken back, to put that up against the new age versus the old age of technology, spying, that kind of stuff, was cool. I don't know. I liked going there. I liked going there, and so I really enjoyed that. The only sticking point for me is the Cuba stuff was not as good as the Hong Kong stuff in Gunmetal Grey. And so that's like the one pause I had on agreeing with you that this is the best book yet.

[00:30:14] And I think it is because of the action sequences and the relationships of characters. But something about Gunmetal Grey and the Hong Kong dark, seedy, gray skies. I really liked how that book just took us there and we lived in it. I don't feel like I lived in Havana as much. I do feel like I lived in the Anton complex as much. Sure. Like I felt like I was on the grounds. But the Cuba of it all, give or take.

[00:30:43] I guess if you step back, though, the Central America of it all, the Central America Caribbean of it all, did work in its totality. Because we were in this small village of Guatemala and we're crossing borders in jungles. We're going to Mexico. It's big cities. It's hidden areas. So I guess when I stepped back, the setting was really good for the whole region. Havana was fun. It wasn't my favorite part of the book necessarily, the fact that this was in Cuba. I still had a little bit of a hump to get over.

[00:31:14] Cuba? Why? Like of all the places you could have picked, I guess the way you broke it down, though, does make sense. Looking back. Yeah. Ultimately, I think that's why he chose to put it in Cuba because he wanted to, you know, explain these old, you know, Cold War. You're right. Relics that are still there in this country that, you know.

[00:31:39] I guess it's a place you can also easily manipulate and take advantage of the poverty. Both from the citizen side of things, you can get people to do your bidding once you're throwing cash around. But also the government side of things that you're so embedded in a country that is used to mismanaged government. Corruption is the norm.

[00:32:01] How do you get out of poverty is you just need a savior complex who's going to, you know, be there to provide the nanny state of it all. So I don't know. Maybe it doesn't make the sense of you drop an ant on there and he can all of a sudden be the big man. You know, he can he can fill that that complex that he has because he's kind of a dweeb. Right. So he gets to go there and be the big man. He gets to splash the cash and basically own the government like the government has to do his bidding. That must feel good for a person like Anton. So I think it strokes his ego.

[00:32:31] So I take it back. Yeah, I like it. The only, you know, besides Cuba, the only other place that his compound like this, you know, thinking about his ultimate goal. Right. Of being bunkered down, building his robot army, essentially creating a new world order and whoever survives, he will be now be the leader of that government. You know, where would you want to be hunkered down to do that? You know, I think like it's either here or, you know, I obviously being on an island strategic island.

[00:33:01] That's one thing. But, you know, maybe I could see it in like Congo or some sort of it has to be a corrupt country that one, you know, doesn't you can essentially buy them off. So they have no idea what's going on in whatever your compound is going. And two, the response can't be that quick, you know, like. So the other flip side of this is it's kind of cool how we have the Singapore office where Gamma is being run.

[00:33:28] Every time we went there, I was kind of intrigued of who these people are. Something. They're all kind of mercenaries. They're kind of just paid. They don't even know by who. And everyone just kind of has the same mission. Right. All the numbers because they don't even use names. I found that very intriguing. And then I like the woman. So another I don't want to call this a ding, but that I think Martina was her name.

[00:33:52] I was really interested in how she saw through the visage and was like something nefarious is going on here. I don't know if I want to be involved. She had to find a way to extricate herself. And by escaping, she was that wild card that made Cyrus kind of slow down and realize, okay, I could wipe this whole operation out. But word might still get out about who we are and what we're doing because she's out there somewhere. And I thought she could have been brought in a little more. Her on the run. It gets mentioned towards the end.

[00:34:22] But there's a large chunk of this book where we know she's already left. Shit starting to hit the fan with the Mexico op. No, she was killed. Was she just straight killed? Yeah, no, it's all like hinted at. But the way I took it is that because they had cameras on her that she didn't see, they immediately, Cyrus was able to, you know, relieve her of her station. She needed to go back home.

[00:34:48] And that was like code word for we offed her. Really? Because he essentially pulls the same exact thing at the very end, right? They're all celebrating with champagne and that the truck pulls up with, you know, a couple of hexacopters and a couple of dogs. And wipes everybody out. I thought there was a reference to Cyrus had to do something different because it thought it got everybody. But she was out there. She was like the next factor.

[00:35:18] I think that was his first taste in like his learning of like. That's how he learned to adapt. Go against his own rules. In the moment, she was a leak. So he had to act right away. But then, you know, he then realized, oh, now all of these people, even once they're finished, they're never getting home. I think that was all a part of his adaptation and, you know, sort of the stuff that you obviously saw Anton was being nervous about.

[00:35:46] Like maybe this thing I don't have quite on the leash as I thought I do. Okay. Okay. So her story played the role of convincing the AI that it needed to break its own rules or go outside its own norms. And that's what allowed it to develop this capacity to teach itself to do its own things and ultimately wipe out all the gamma people. Because it was learning. It had to do that. It was when it all started. He only had a list of about seven people, right?

[00:36:14] Seven people that he essentially was okay with killing. Yeah. And then Cyrus on its own, as it's adapting, as it's learning, it starts adding up to, you know, so much so that it adds Court and Zoya because they happen to run into one of the other people that are already on the list thinking that. Yeah. Okay. They've already told him something. Like, you know, that's the whole reason why, you know, Court's even involved in this thing. See, I missed that read. So for a while I was thinking, like, I want to know about where she went. Where'd she go?

[00:36:43] Who can she spill the beans to? Is she going to come? I thought she might pop up somewhere and, like, talk to Pace or Hanley or be brought into the fold at the CIA. She's just dead. Dude. I liked that read of it, and I didn't catch it while we were reading. There's a little bit of subtext like that that you got to kind of work out. And we said foreshadowing before. Contreras and the drone guy was another one of those. I'm like, is he going to run? Is the drone guy kind of going to start seeing what they're doing? He already knew they were killing people.

[00:37:13] Like, he knew he was involved. Once he saw the autonomous part of it, though, I think something clicked for him. He was scared. Yeah. He got a little nervous. He got a little spooked. So I was wondering if he was going to make a move at any point. And one of the most fun little details was when Cyrus switched to Spanish on the phone with him. Went from an American accent to Spanish. And just the way Jay Snyder read it, that was the moment I was like, oh, Cyrus isn't a person.

[00:37:40] Like, I was like, Cyrus is a bot when it did that. So, again, I think Mark Graney, he knows when he wants to lead the horse to water or force it to drink. And he plays it just right. He was leading us a bunch of times. And then a few times he was okay forcing us to drink. He was okay telling us, you're supposed to figure this out in this moment. And it made it all the sweeter that if you did or you didn't figure it out, it set it up either way to be awesome.

[00:38:06] If you were totally surprised with Cyrus being an AI, that would have been a really cool moment for them to tell you that. If you kind of hinted along the way because the voice sounded a little robotic, that also would have been neat. So I just think he's working on – he's operating on a lot of levels of storytelling. And almost each one is being done at an extremely high level. A near-on perfect level that I think at some point in the Gray Man, and a lot of people are saying the most recent book is really good.

[00:38:34] I think at some point we're going to have a 49 or a 50 in this series. I think it's inevitable. Okay. With how good Graney is. All right. Let's – speaking of a scorecard, let's get into it. Let's see what happens. Well, I want to hear from you. Plot and action. They could both go together. 20 points to give between plot and action. What do you say? Okay. I'm comfortable giving like an 18. Yeah. Like 9 and 9 or whatever, you know, 10 and 8.

[00:39:04] The action in this is – it's suspense. Like this book was so, so suspenseful. Like I just kept – at one point I needed to know – because the one thing this book that does that, I don't know, like is different than some of the other books we read is – you know, I always – yeah, sure, we know that the gray man is going to get out of it, right? But for a while there I was like, how the fuck is he going to get out of this? That's very true.

[00:39:33] You know, they seemed overmatched at times. And so much so that I'm like, I have to keep – like I would leave my office and go on a 30-minute walk just so I could listen to another chapter of it while getting some steps in. And I crushed this book. Like, you know, I was ready to go, but we had some other circumstances to record this week, Philly's game.

[00:40:00] But, you know, I think – and then just to progress that into, you know, I've started the next book. I think he just – he's continuing. This arc is – this suspense is so good. It just makes you want to keep reading. So, yeah, I'm going to give it two nines. Because of everything you said, I'm going a little higher. I'm going 19. 10 on action. I'm pulling that card. 10 on action.

[00:40:29] My one point is for plot, just a couple things that I brought up of like, was it a little hand-wavy that they had to hire Zach Hightower? And then that also happened to be a connection to Court, who also happened to know Fitzroy, who happened to know the guy in Mexico. And part of me – I didn't want to ask those questions, one, because it's unnecessary. And Mark Graney is already taking you on a ride that I was bought hook, line, and sinker into.

[00:40:54] But my one point is just if there's one too many people who knows one too many other people that get you just in at the exact moment you need to get in, and it all just works, like is that plot armor? Or is that, you know, is it natural that it would play out this way? So that's my one point for plot, but I don't have much to say about that. Similarly with characters, I'm wondering if you're going to go as high as I do on good guys and bad guys.

[00:41:23] I'm flirting with perfect scores for both. All right, well, before we get there, let's hear your buy-in. Oh, I mean, buy-in's a five. Yeah, I was bought in hook, line, and sinker to this book, dude. Sure. Nothing that – Suspense is incredible. Suspense is off the charts with this, so that's a five out of five. So good guys, solid five.

[00:41:52] Like, first of all, like you said, we already know this is a Hightower book. Getting him, getting Pace. Pace is another character. Obviously, he's, you know, again, I want to know more about him. I want to know more about his interaction. So, and obviously, Zoya, like getting more of her in this book. Great. Seeing her action, freaking flipping on, doing flips into a windowsill and taking a guy out while she's about to go to a firing squad. Badassery. Bad guys, I don't know.

[00:42:21] Like, once you get the Ren turn and the Anton – like, Anton was a little bit of a pussy bitch. He kind of fell off towards the end with me because he was starting to get, like, wishy-washy. You know, like, I thought he was going to be more of, like, this megalomaniac who put on this great facade the entire time. And then, you know, he takes off his mask and you realize that he is, you know, he believes he is God.

[00:42:46] And – but at the very end, there's this thing that Greeny does of – I guess because he starts to get worried that he's losing control. And then, ultimately, he decides, like, oh, I'll pull the plug. He stops the upload. Like, to me, I wanted him to be the kind of guy that's like, no, we got to push the upload. Like, send it now. Like, send – like, you know, like, that kind of thing. Like, make him more of a hardened villain. Like, send it to me. So that's why I'm probably going to go for four for bad guys.

[00:43:13] But, like, the Ren character, because he was, like, a true believer, like a cult. Like, you know, you could tell that he even, like, wanted to – he thought that Hightower could be saved. Quote, unquote, saved. Yeah, exactly. Brought into this new world order. Yeah. He was the scarier of the two to me. I agree with that. I was actually – for a while, I was hoping Anton actually is who we were led to believe he was.

[00:43:35] He is this millionaire guy who wants to do the right thing and sees a good use for AI and never intended for his creations to be used for evil or power or violence or domination. And then Ren was going to be the one manipulating that to do these god-tier things and change the world with the technology and siphon that technology off from under Anton's – you know, within his inner circle.

[00:43:58] So I would have been okay either way, but I will say it landed a bit more for me, even the ending with Anton's true reveal, because there is a conversation around playing God. And I thought that conversation hit. And it also built on an earlier conversation. I think Hightower was trying to tease out who this Anton is. And he said, like, no, I don't think I'm a god. I think I'm better than a god. Because a god is – God doesn't exist. A god doesn't exist, and I exist.

[00:44:27] And I exist better than whatever people have invented and called god throughout the ages. Because he says he's essentially – he's created god with Cyrus, right? And if you create god, then you're better than god. So I think the philosophical kind of underpinnings of who this guy is and what he's getting at was there. And, yes, his kind of crumbling and decaying in the moment in the heat of battle, that was also foreshadowed when he got shot.

[00:44:53] And it was a little, you know, scrap of his ballistic bulletproof vest, you know, and he was in shock. So I think we've already seen that he's going to just fold under pressure. And he did kind of have this almost melancholy when the servers have to get blown, losing his baby Cyrus. So, yeah, we pulled the plug on, you know, uploading it to the Chinese, and then were we going to upload it to the Americans and all this? And did he realize that Cyrus started getting out of control? You know, this is his little puppy that he raised, his little baby.

[00:45:23] And then it took on a mind of its own that was going to ultimately destroy him. I think he grappled with that in an okay way. So let me go four and a half on villains. I don't think I'm going to knock at a point. I'm also going to say that half is maybe Kincaid being a little too flat. He's almost like that really flat assassin. You just expect him to be a bad asshole who's going to kill people with no remorse, and that's exactly what he does. But he gets a reputation.

[00:45:53] So I think what saves him for me is everyone in the agency knows his calling card. Court knows it. Court's been up against him. And he's a decent match for Court a couple of times. One time they face off in Guatemala or somewhere in Central America, and then another one when Court is trying to save Pace, when Pace is on Overwatch with the sniper. And they have to go almost toe-to-toe in a little shootout, but it's really Pace, actually.

[00:46:19] Pace is the one really handling things there as he's hiding out in that corridor. Another suspenseful scene when Court jumps down the flag. Yeah, once you realize that, because we don't know what target the drone assassin and Kincaid's been given. And then once you realize that he's, oh, actually he's converging on Pace, I'm like, oh shit. But that was a good plot twist there too.

[00:46:49] One thing just on that. Yeah, I could see that. One thing on that that indicated to me it was not going to be the Gray Man, because I think there was a little of this, did they just get a hit on the Gray Man again? Like he went after him once. Did they up the ante, give it to him again? When he only asked for three million on top. I was like, it's like in Mitch Rapp. When Louis Gould is tasked with going up against Rapp, like most guys are not even going to touch it. There's no dollar value you can put on that. Louis Gould kind of gets excited about that.

[00:47:17] He's like, I get to kill the killer. I get to hunt the hunter. You know, so once Kincaid put a dollar value of it at three million, I was like, that's low balling if it's Gray Man. If it's Gray Man, that's low ball. So it's got to be just somebody at the CIA or some other player. But still, it was it was, again, another little suspense. Are they going after him? Are they going after Pace? We that Contreras is like I'm watching somebody sit in a room and I'm surprised he's not moving.

[00:47:44] Well, is that hiding out with Zoya at that coffee shop or whatever? Or is it Pace in the room? Or is it Anton? Because is it exactly that whole time? It's juxtaposed with Hightower is, you know, body watching Anton. They're in his room together. It was well played. Doing emails. Yeah, it was well played. Totally well played. But one of the things he sees is he gets captured. He's not killed. So he could come back.

[00:48:14] Definitely think he, you know, keeping him in the filing cabinet to potentially bring Lancer back in the future for sure. Yeah, that was another interesting scene where we have the the team of commandos swimming in and putting a tracker on the arm shipments where they're trying to get a hold of who sent these, where are they going? And the tracker ultimately is what lets them realize it's going to Kincaid's villa and not where it was intended to go in Cuba. So that was kind of an interesting scene.

[00:48:41] Again, that was probably where you could have cut cut a little fat, trim a little fat out of that scene. Also, the scene with Pace giving those guys overwatch and Kincaid coming after them. But at the same time, it was a really good filler. It's really good for that. Like we're past the halfway point of the book. So something really great just happened. The Tulum, Mexico scene. But we're not quite ready to build up to the final action set piece, the big one. And that worked really nice is like that 60, 70 percent mark. Let's throw him a little bones.

[00:49:10] Let's have Court and Kincaid kind of get together. Let's let's involve Pace. And let's also actually build up the plot of how and why we're going to go and suspect Anton in Cuba. It all got us there. So that's that also will be rolled into my one point on plot. I think just little delays like that, that that got a little long in the tooth. But in terms of bad guys, four and a half. And in terms of good guys, perfect five. Zoya, Zach, Pace, the gang. You brought up the other company, the JV squad.

[00:49:41] Taka Victor. Takeyashi, is that one of the guys? He was awesome. Yeah, and Travers. We obviously. Yeah, Travers. We've seen him in other books. He was obviously in in Gunmetal Gray. Great team. I liked, you know, see, you know, their little rendezvous of how they had to get out of that. You know, they stole a big rig. They bashed through the fence. Like that was pretty cool. It's good stuff. Like I understand.

[00:50:07] It's like this little tweet, this little ramp up in the action right after we gave you like a crazy asset piece. And right before we're going to give you like the final, you know. Yeah. The climax of the book. It came in with action and it moved the plot along. And it was a really well crafted scene and just written phenomenally well. Yeah, because you had to get Lancer out of the way. Like if he either had to be killed or he had to be captured because him looming there like was always going to cause like some weird. Unless you're going to have him be like a final stand down.

[00:50:37] But I thought about how it worked out. You know, once we realized that Anton and Ren are the actual players, like I think it made sense that we have the standout, the final standoff between them and their forces. So, yeah. So just looming all of this because it's one thing I don't think we put a bow on yet. If you could, and I'm not asking you to do this in any category, if you can give give or take a point for the whole Gamma team, the whole Cyrus running this Gamma team, having basically an unlimited bank account.

[00:51:05] And the reason I'm asking now is because I think it can boost villains a little bit. If you realize Anton set it up with unlimited money, unlimited resources to actually be the arms and legs, right? The hands and the mechanical piece of AI. Because one thing for me that is still that jump of will AI kill everybody and dominate is to me somewhere you can turn it off. I don't know if it's just blowing a bunch of data centers, but like there's a plug. You can just pull somewhere.

[00:51:33] Like to actually execute this, it would take people doing the things to give AI the power, which is what I'm scared of. I'm scared that people will give and use AI to do its bidding and like will get companies like your Boeing and whoever to build all the things. Like let's give 10,000 drones to some company and now connect them with AI and boom, now we got it. So Anton was smart enough to realize the hardware is a big component on this.

[00:51:57] So just overall, do you think that helped with the villains knowing that this whole plan was Cyrus running an ops team to be the hands and the brains and the actual logistical arm of Armageddon essentially? Like did that work for you? Yeah. And I think that it's a great plot device to use.

[00:52:18] Essentially all those people were capable people that had done something to get them either on the wrong side of their organization. So they had lost their jobs, not so much that they needed to go to jail, but Cyrus had blackmail on that and everyone. And we don't know the specifics, but we're meant to believe that he has blackmail on every single person in that gamma organization.

[00:52:43] That's the only way that he's able to control them, keep them there and keep them doing this crazy ass assassin plot list rundown. And that's what's scary because you have a computer that's able to manipulate, you know, because essentially we thought that the director was in charge, but, you know, he wasn't in charge because they had blackmail, some sort of blackmail on him to then be the fake figurehead.

[00:53:09] And then to, you know, have the whole team below him, like to, to set it up like that. That's the scary part. Yeah. One of the things I guess you could, and this was, you know, I did think about this a little bit. If he all is all that powerful, why wouldn't he have the ability to like hack into, you know, anytime they're calling cell phones, anytime they're using radios.

[00:53:35] Like I know they, Mike Raney loves the signal app just like Pete Hegsik does. But, you know, I guess you have to put a limit on him. Right. And yeah, I wonder the problem with, with, when you have like AI in your books is, do you, but I guess you could say in this case, Cyrus wasn't complete yet. He was still learning. They were still training him.

[00:54:04] Like he wasn't fully unleashed out into the world to like hack into every single, you know, camera, stuff like that. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you can contextualize it and say it was, you know, still developing, wasn't there yet, would eventually be out of necessity. But you are right. And I'll call it the Alice problem from the Jack Carr universe. Once you put that power into the story,

[00:54:33] it will never make sense of why that thing that has that power doesn't just automatically hear every conversation, every cell phone, every satellite, every, every radio of every individual soldier on every op anywhere in the world at that time and automatically knows it. It's almost like you let the cat out of the bag and then, you know, never caught it. I, I wondered that. I think they wrote off that Cyrus wasn't there yet.

[00:54:59] But I do think it's a question of in universe. Are you going to have to grapple with that at some point? Like how much of the next book do you keep beating the drum of there's this AI thing? Somebody can build it. The Chinese are still building it. The Americans still need to try to build it versus you just say we killed all the scientists. We're ready to move on. The AI thing was like done. Or is it always going to be this perennial problem where you just go, I don't know who or what is listening. I don't know who or what is pulling the strings.

[00:55:27] And I don't know who or what is just going to drop a drone on me at any time. Like, is that just where we're at? Or can you just say, oh, no, Cyrus is no more because we killed it off and no scientists know how to make it. We don't have to deal with an autonomous threat anymore and a swarm of drones and robot dogs coming out of the blue. He does kind of clear the table there by, you know, literally every single scientist, the top 18 scientists. So, you know, if you were going to kick this off, you'd be getting the 19th best guy to, you know, obviously it took years to get to where they were.

[00:55:57] So they've set them back. Yeah, a long time. But then you can pull on that card five books from now and, you know, pull a rogue one. We've got the Death Star plans and they've been handed off. And that's what gets us to a new hope of like someone just had the disc and like this whole time they were sitting on it. And now it's back. And I feel like Jack Carr has to do that right with the Alice problem of at some point, Alice is like, I'm back. And you have to write off what she's been doing and why she's not OP now. Or maybe she will be OP. We don't know.

[00:56:26] I feel like Mark Rainey has an opportunity to one day pull the Cyrus card. Cyrus 2.0, you know? Sure. So, yeah, I'll see. Remains to be seen how that's handled. Because honestly, let's say court can get his hands on a version of Cyrus and just tell it, find me where Zoya is with the Russians and shut down everything about their communications. Communications, I'm going in. Like you could just literally flip a switch and do it. You know, you could be anonymous. The hacker group. That's interesting.

[00:56:55] This book played with what happens when you take the software, the Anton AI neural network guy, you combine it with the hardware. Because to me, that was what was most scary about this book is it made me visualize what the actualization of the AI threat looks like. If you combine unlimited resources, money, factory manpower, and hardware with this AI technology to develop and control systems on its own, well, now you got the perfect match.

[00:57:20] Which, well, kind of the third layer of that, I think then is the human brain, like how it knows human relationships and, you know, context and body language and posture. And like it can, I just feel like there's a hump that it's not over yet. And it's kind of like you're going to create this trifecta at some point. Almost like you bring Alice in. The way Alice, not to go too far in a jack car, she is now reaching another level because she thinks and acts like Reese.

[00:57:47] It took her taking not all of humanity. Like everyone's like the scare is it knows the whole internet and can answer anything. It has surveillance in everybody's home with the internet of things. Okay, sure. But Alice had to learn, no, I just have to think like one man, James Reese. Because he'll pull out decisions that can never be calculated by an algorithm because he's human. And once AI starts doing that, so she like decided to be a Reese and think like Reese. I feel like there's another layer of AI that we've not unlocked yet. So you put the software, you put the hardware, you put that on it.

[00:58:17] I could see another Cyrus book. I'd be happy with it. Sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. All right. What about the setting? Setting? I like the commitment to the bit. I like the commitment to the Central America vibes. I'm going to give credit for that. But it is probably another full point thing for me. It's probably a four out of five that it was really, really good. It just wasn't next level. Like when Brad Thor does it right, it's next level.

[00:58:46] In Gunmetal Gray, Mark Gray did it right, I think. And that's what's going to also dig me a point is like when I compare this back to Gunmetal Gray, it's like I want to give it a five, but it's not the same level as what we got in Gunmetal Gray. It's not quite that. And maybe because like these things could have been, you know, obviously he chose a place. Like you said, he's sticking to the pit. You know, this and we're going to talk about the cover in a minute. Like I think it's captured there with this tropical vibe.

[00:59:17] But it really could have been anywhere, you know? So that's the thing. The Havana just felt like it could have been anywhere. And the Singapore to have the Gamma team just felt like it could have been anywhere. And I wasn't sold enough on why we need it here and there. Why are they in Guatemala? Like they could be in however many hundreds of countries. I don't know why they're there. You know, why did the guy have to have a Hacienda in Tulum? Kind of just because it fit.

[00:59:41] And then the Kincaid jumping around, you know, like from this city to that city overnight in a flash. Yes, Cyrus can just send it the jumbo jet, right? The Gulf Stream, like sure, I guess that. But we don't really spend time in Balo Alto or in Boston, you know, so. Just a little too much one, you know, one to the next for seemingly misunderstood reasons. Four out of five. All right. Okay. We've got two more. We've got cover and free space. Yeah.

[01:00:12] You want to do the cover just because I don't know what to expect because I didn't really look at them. This could be really, really good. I made a doc. Okay. I put both of them in there. They're kind of very similar, but just one change with the color. Okay. There's only two, though? I would imagine there's a lot more, no? No, there's only two. Wow. I guess because it's a newer book. Mm-hmm. Hmm.

[01:00:40] Well, tell me, what do you think about the blue and the red? I want to say I really like this blue. Like, so there's a subtle shift between the only other version is the audio-only version. So it's essentially like a cropped-out version of the original title. But they made this decision to change this color blue. And I like the original blue better.

[01:01:07] I feel like it gives more of that, you know, Rio, you know, nighttime in a, you know, Jamaica, Dominican Republic vibe. Agreed. Yeah. As opposed to this other, like, subdued blue that's on the audible-only. Love the fact that there's a quadcopter or a six, you know, six-copter drone right there.

[01:01:35] You know, obviously we're in some sort of Latin American city. You got the palm trees. Probably, like, my biggest ding is I don't love the man in the middle of the Mark Greeny. Everything else about the cover I really like. Yeah. I think I'm with you. You're 100% spot on. The trees with the red and that exact blue, it's a sunset on a tropical island, man. Like, that is nighttime.

[01:02:04] Sun's going down. Yeah, it's like that point where, like, the sun has gone down, but it's still, like, you know, not quite fully dark yet. The sky turns orange for a bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I really like that. I think the drone is a perfect touch. The cityscape, is it the right skyline? I think so. Maybe you want something more isolated, more rural almost. Like the hacienda. That could be another ding.

[01:02:32] Like, is this, like, the resort area near Tulum? Is it, um... The town in Guatemala? The town. I think the town of Guatemala. I thought was, like, way more, you know, like there was one hostel with, like... Yeah, I agree. Like, if anything, this has got to be like Tulum. Could it be Havana? I guess, is this Havana? Like, downtown Havana? If it's actually the real Havana. If it is, but we're never there, though. That's...

[01:03:01] We're not in the city of Havana too much. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, it's good, but it's just missing an edge. It has the edge on color. It has the edge on the... It has the edge on the palm trees and the drone. It just doesn't have the edge with the cityscape. Yeah. And I think that ties back to setting, because we...

[01:03:25] We weren't given, like, that one landmark in one of these places that they could have, like, pinpointed on. Or that we wouldn't want them to pinpoint on, you know? Like a clock tower or something. Like, there was a famous clock tower in one of these things that had a metaphorical reason. Or it ticked, right? A certain thing happened and it ticked. And then all of a sudden, Cyrus made its move or whatever. Yeah, I think that would have really put a bow on it. I might give it props, though, for the color, the drone, and the trees.

[01:03:55] So I think those get me up to a four and a half. Okay. I think those elements do enough. But you are right. It's a little more of a, like, talismanic location. Kind of being a little tighter. This is, again, why I dinged a point on setting. Just being a little tighter on setting overall, I think, would have helped out here. Good cover, though. Good cover. I'm pulling up.

[01:04:25] Is it like a pretty? I don't know. It's a little too grainy to, like, fully do a deep dive. A little too grainy, huh? Yeah. But I'm pulling up, you know, nighttime cityscapes of Havana and it looks similar. I think it's reasonable, yeah. You know, you could tell me this is Havana and I would say sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one big dome in Havana that would have been nice to, like, highlight. Yeah, I agree.

[01:04:53] Whether that's the Capitol building or I don't know what building that is. But I would have even just liked that house in the middle of Tulum, like, just standing front and center. Like, that to me would have made more sense. Or the La Finca. Like, you know, some sort of bunker built into the, you know, with all the satellite dishes on top, stuff like that. That would have been cool. Agreed. Agreed. Because you could have kept everything else with the cover. Everything else the same. Change out.

[01:05:23] That would have been a five. I think if it had the judge a cover by the setting of it all, it would have been a five. All right. So we didn't quite, did we talk about the use of the Gunmetal Gray title in the last? Like, so I think we should bring it up here. Like, what did you think about, there's a one-liner. Yep. And I'm picking up that, unlike other authors, he likes to just put it in there once. Use the title. The title is going to be used once.

[01:05:51] Whether or not, like, in the last book, it was used at the very end. Very end. Yeah, but look. Yep. This, it was, it was dropped, I want to say, like, maybe halfway through the book? A little later. I think it was. A little later than that? I think it was a little later when we're figuring out Anton a little bit more. We're starting to get onto him and Ren and their plans. Okay. It could have even been after we've had the whole Cyrus reveal. That's a possibility, too.

[01:06:17] It actually could have been when they were in the control rooms, when the team first breached and took control of him and Zoya takes the woman. Could have been around then. Yeah. I should have, I should have clocked. But either way, the context is it's Anton declaring himself, right? An agent of chaos. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I didn't get that vibe that that's who he was. No. Yeah, me neither. Like, I like the ring of it.

[01:06:45] I like how agent of chaos and the chaos agent, like, I like the ring of that phrase. I didn't get the sense that Anton was the guy to deliver it. Like, to me, that somebody dropping that line in a moment like that rings of, I'm the anarchist. I'm the destroyer. I just like to watch the world burn. I'm the Joker, right? Right. I didn't get the sense that Anton is the Joker. No. I don't know.

[01:07:19] Does it work for you? Is that a ding? Is it a ding for you? No, it's not a ding. I think it's unlike where I probably would have dinged the gray man harder if we had, like, gone more into that in the last book. Yeah. No, it's a fine. Yeah. All right. Winner. I'm going to let you take it. I don't want to steal your thunder. Well, I have to take Hightower, man. Like, if you're giving me first divs, I'm taking Hightower all the way.

[01:07:49] Yeah. Yeah. We talked about it at the beginning, but I think, you know, this is as much as a Hightower book as it is a court book, even like a Zoya book. So, love him. I already know we're going to get more of him in the next book. I'm super excited for you to read that book. So, yeah. Kudos. Dude, it's a great choice, and I'm just going to bolster you with a quote because in case

[01:08:17] I went first, I was going to pick Hightower, and I had a quote. So, let me use this quote to actually back up your plan. There we go. Figuring shit out was not his specialty. He always considers himself labor, not management. He wasn't the guy who was sent in to investigate a situation. He was the guy who was sent in after you already investigated and decided somebody needed to die or something needed to blow up. That's awesome. Perfect. Dude, that's such a gem.

[01:08:44] And the fact is, he's not even using that line for his main character. He's not using that line to describe court gentry. That's such a baller move. That's such a confident energy move of Mark Rainey just being like, I know Zach Hightower's gold, and I am not afraid to have him shine. And I'm not afraid to write something like that, which rightfully so could be about court gentry, but don't use it for him. Right. Yeah.

[01:09:14] It's bold. It's bold and it's brave. So my shout out, I said it earlier, it's to the two marks. It's to Mark Rainey because I haven't had a series that got me this peaked and this interested in a long while. We're hitting that point where we're like getting drawn out with series. We started a few, like we dabbled here and there with a couple. These two books, Gunmetal Gray and Chaos Agent, brought me into this series like no other. And that's all due to Mark Rainey and his talents.

[01:09:42] But the other mark as well, because we would not have done this if he was not relentless, another Mark Rainey book. If he was not relentless convincing us, we must do it. We must do it. And when push came to shove and I told him like, look, it's a little too big of a task. He was willing to come up with a reading list. He separated the series into arcs. He told us which arcs you can like not skip over, but come back to later versus which arcs you should kind of go through in a sequence. And I think thanks to him, we're getting the Zoya arc.

[01:10:11] And I'm really enjoying it. Because if we had not read Gunmetal Gray, like this book would have made no sense. Not a lot of sense. If we went from on target where like him and Hightower, who knows what's going on? And like Denny Carmichael is just written off the picture and they're bringing in Hanley and Pace and we hear a little backstory of Brewer and we don't know anything. That would have been tough. Gunmetal Gray suggested by Mark Harris was the perfect little bridge. You get to know Zoya and then something massive happens with Zoya.

[01:10:39] And all the while they're sleeping in the closet together. Mark, hats off to you. Mark and Mark. Well, you were correct. This book, our highest rated Mark Greeny book. I have a 45 and you have a 47. 47. Okay. 45, man. Okay. All right. I tried to convince you a few times. I was trying to like give a little nudge wondering if you were going to like bump up a half here, half there. But all right. Solid score.

[01:11:08] I got to come clean. I'm being honest because I freaking love the next book too. And I, I, I, I've tried to be, I'm trying to be, you know, fared and we're only talking about this book, but the next book is so fucking awesome too. So, okay. So you're downplaying this one. You're setting the table. I cannot wait for you to read that book. You're, you're going to be your, hopefully your mind's going to be blown.

[01:11:34] Um, this two book arc goes down in history as one of the best two book arcs. I think, I think I've read. Wow. It's up there. It's up there with Memorial Day. Consent to kill. Consent to kill Memorial. And we needed that. We needed that shot in the arm. It's up there with the juice. You know, Spymaster, True Believer, Spymaster Backlash. We, we needed the juice. This is the juice. Oh, this is 100% the juice.

[01:12:04] I am bought in. Tomorrow, I have a three and a half hour ride to Penn State. I'm starting the next one. Wow. Dude, this is big stuff coming out of there. I actually need to think about that. I might like, do I start the next one or do it? Cause it kind of does end like a nice point. Do I, or do I now go back? Cause then I would be caught up. So it's midnight black. And then the, the newest one, the one that came out in February. Wow. Wow.

[01:12:30] Even more kudos to Mark Harris for not only did he make a reading list that really jumps us to where we need to be, because now we're going to be on the gray man train reporting on all the updates. Whenever the newest book is released, whenever we get a cover tease or a plot drop, we're going to be right. Talking the talk. Cause something that was daunting was like, I don't want to get to the newest book and then be lost. Right? Like I know we had already done. Who's high series. Two series. When we wanted to be more of this. Cause one, everyone's talking about it.

[01:12:59] Talking about these different books and two, we want to talk about them, you know, like so. Agreed. And let's hope we get a gray man to movie announcement. It's, it's been a couple of years. I don't know how Netflix favors the series and what, what their numbers look like on the first one. I think it did numbers. I think it did really good numbers initially. I just think there's a couple other holdups. So who knows? Hollywood. All I know is not the Martian.

[01:13:28] Project Hail Mary. I'm not blanking. Project Hail Mary. Gangbusters, dude. Oh, sure. Gangbusters. Oh, yeah. And if it doesn't get a best picture nomination, I'm going to be upset. No, no, no. No questions asked. I don't think it'll win best picture. Cause those kinds of movies don't, don't win best picture. Yeah. But if it does not, if it does not make the list of top 10 movies this year by critics. Oh, 10. Then the Oscar suck. No.

[01:13:58] Top, top 10. It's in the conversation for top three to five for sure. Has to be. So. Yeah. All right. Well, like you want to listen to our project Hail Mary, go back and listen to it. We did the book. We did the movie. Did a follow up. So. Sure. And also, if you want to get into some of our terminalist stuff, I, I mentioned that a couple of times on this pod. I think it's right up there with people who love the gray man would, would definitely love Jack Carr. And I'm glad I went with the clickbait.

[01:14:27] Our recent Jack Carr episode is paying off our, our most watched episode on YouTube so far. I purposely dug a little bit into the clickbaity thumbnail, you know, game. So we'll see if we keep that riding. We want to be honest with the people. So if it's too clickbaity where we don't feel we're being authentic, that will never happen from this pod. But, you know, it might get our toes a little wet. So. Might play in the sand a little. At the same time, reading the fourth option, because we don't have the audio book yet.

[01:14:57] Right. Killer book. Killer book. Yeah. We're going to have to cover that. We already interviewed Jack Carr. We already have a spoiler filled discussion with him coming out. And on top of all that, we've got another couple of interviews lined up. Big one to announce. Next week. Next week. Yep. And arcs for choke point by none other than Brad Thor are in the mail very soon. David had already touched base with me and we booked a Brad Thor interview.

[01:15:26] So things are happening as we're on the verge of, you know, the summer, you know, summer Brad's around the corner. So. Awesome. Yeah, dude. Good stuff. All right, guys. Before we get out of here, we need to thank our patrons, our deputy directors, Sherry F and Brad E. And we have three deputy directors. Crowley. Welcome to the crew. Brad E. And Crowley. Thank you very much, guys. Also, our special agents. Can't forget them.

[01:15:56] Adam, Matt, Ben, Daryl, George, Matt, Chris, and Don. Please subscribe, rate, and review to all three seasons of No Limits. You can find us at ThrillerPod.com or at ThrillerPodcast. And as always, just let Hightower be Hightower.