The Gray Man marked the beginning of a long and successful series (totaling eleven novels as of 2022) of books featuring the gray man, also known as Courtland Gentry, a former CIA official now working as a hitman for a security company. That security company is owned and operated by Sir Donald Fitzroy, who is Gentry's mentor and one of his only friends.
One day, Fitzroy is kidnapped by a man called Lloyd, who works for a French company that is bent on closing a Nigerian oil deal that will significantly enhance the wealth of their shareholders - and perhaps more importantly, their founders. In kidnapping Fitzroy, Lloyd aims to get Gentry, who had gone into hiding after a botched assassination, out in the open so that he could eliminate him once and for all.
Above all, The Gray Man is a novel meant to entertain its audience. There is not much beneath the surface of the novel, as author Mark Greaney. In an interview promoting the release of the film of the same name (released in 2022) and reflecting on his past novels, Greaney said that he now writes "bigger, deeper books" than he once did.
Still, The Gray Man is a powerful novel about the power of optimism over cynicism and a warning about the lengths - however dark and depraved - humans will go to satiate their own desire for wealth and power. It is, ultimately, a novel about the good (and evil) people are capable of and how complex human beings really and truly are.
