(light music) (bell dings) - Hi, I am Mark Greaney, and this is "Burner: A Gray Man Novel."

His name is Court Gentry.

He's a former CIA paramilitary officer who becomes kind of a freelance asset, mostly a hit man.

But he's a guy who retains this moral code.

In this book, here we are in book 12, some files from a bank in Switzerland have been stolen, and they basically lay out how Russian intelligence is influencing the West about the war in Ukraines.

Once this information is out, everybody is after it.

And so the Gray Man is actually contracted by the CIA to go pick it up, but the woman that he loves is actually trying to protect the person that has it.

(light music) - It's a never-ending unrelenting thought, intellectual action, physical action, twists and turns.

I mean, and this is the 12th book in the series.

You know, I feel like you're hitting your stride.

- Yeah, although, you know, you think, "Did I hit my stride five years ago?"

'Cause it was easier then.

(J.T.

laughs) - [J.T.]

It's always easier.

- Yeah, and I always thought it would get easier the more you go, and it's exactly the opposite.

You just spend a lot of time doing research and, you know, laboring over it, telling all your family that it's terrible.

And then when you're finally done with the last draft, you're like, "Hey, I think I've got something here."

- "Oh, hey, it's not so bad after all."

(Mark laugh) These are very current-event related, so as the world changes, you are able to shift and that brings new ideas, correct?

- Exactly, things that happen in the world influence the story.

I had a general idea for this story.

The book does not take place in Ukraine, it's not about the Ukrainian war, but the backdrop of that, that's very integral to it.

And I already had an idea for this story involving Swiss banking and Russian intelligence, and then the war started right as I started writing the book.

And I just wanted to integrate it in there because I was like, "I'm gonna spend all day watching news of what's going on in Ukraine anyhow, I'd like to integrate that into the story because I'm gonna naturally do the research."

(gentle tense music) - What's the difference between a sociopath and a byronic hero?

Where is that line?

(Mark exhales sharply) - That's a a good question.

I sort of dabbled in an earlier "Gray Man" book talking about that there's some sociopath in what he does, because there would have to be in this ability.

But I've backed away from that as he's grown as a character.

There's other characters in the story who are also good guys, but they're a little more sociopathic than he is.

Zoya, his love interest.

You know, there's a scene in a book I have coming up where they both have to kill some people and Court, you know, is in pain for what he had to do to these people that probably, you know, just wanted to go home to their families.

But Zoya is not.

And because I wanted to sort of show him that there's a depth to his character, but, you know, is he a sociopath?

That's a good question, because to some degree you would sort of have to be, and I have friends that are military and former intelligence or whatever and, you know, their job is to take their orders, salute, turn around and draw fire or whatever.

And, you know, that doesn't make you a sociopath, but at the same time, you know, you're not like you and me.

(gentle music) - [J.T.]

So what is Court afraid of?

- What is Court afraid of?

(exhales sharply) You know, so I wanted to show that he was so specifically trained from such a young age.

His father trained him and then abused him - [J.T.]

Abused him.

- Yeah, and the CIA trained him, and he was never sort of taught relationships and romance and life skills.

The only thing that I would say that he's really afraid of is Zoya, the woman that he loves.

And, you know, does she love him back?

Are they destined to be together?

Is it just too star-crossed?

You know, that sort of thing.

I think that would be a real emotion that an assassin would have if he was in love with another assassin.

- I mean, how do they even fall in love, right?

I mean, that is not something that's on the game play.

- Yeah, so they both have a lot of walls built up for their own personal defenses, you know, and they let each other in.

But it is, you know, it's an unstable datente (both laugh) in the relationship.

(light tense music) - Every book has a formula, and that's how it becomes whatever genre it is.

Is there something in particular that you use to make these just a high-octane thriller?

- You know, it's funny, I wrote several books with Tom Clancy before he died and then four more "Jack Ryan" novels after Tom passed, and I look back at that time and I really don't remember a single time when I got an idea that it did not end up in a book.

In your head, there's a little bit of a template of how these books should look because I was a reader for, you know, 25 years before I became a writer.

So in the spy genre, you know, you have to have a strong central character.

But more than anything else, when I'm trying to decide, you know, what to write, you have to know what your villain wants.

You know, in this type of book if you know what the villain wants, everything else can fit in there.

Even your hero's journey and all that sort of stuff.

Your villain's objective, you know, is he trying to destroy the world, (laughs) is he trying to save the world?

You know, whatever the situation is it's like once I have a real good lock-in on who my villain is and what he wants out of this, then I can build the story from there.

And these stories are all standalone, all 12 "Gray Man" books are standalone, but there's a longer story arc if you did read them in order.

And so I do go back in my head and say, "Alright, well, how is he going to grow?

How is he going to be a different character at the end of the book than he was at the beginning?"

But more than anything else in these big action thriller adventures, it's about the villain.

(light tense music) - How did writing the Clancy books shape how you go at this series now?

Did that help?

- Yeah, it helped a lot.

And I see a really stark difference between my first three novels that were written pre-Clancy and books four and on, beginning with this book called "Dead Eye."

And from "Dead Eye" on, I really see that the books are larger in scope, they encompass more, there's more characters, more things thread together.

Basically the Clancy Playbook.

And I wasn't trying to copy Clancy, it was just writing Clancy, I had the freedom to do that, which was the type of book that I really loved.

And then having a couple Clancy books under my belt, I had the freedom to do that in a "Gray Man" novel, and that's where I immediately gravitated to.

So, I mean, I learned a lot as far as, you know, keeping the scope of the story, keeping the characters interesting.

You know, there has to be tension on every page, as you know, and, you know, tension doesn't necessarily mean a gunfight or a fistfight or a car chase.

You know, there can be tension at every level of the story.

And I think I really grew from my first three "Gray Man" books when I was not working with Clancy to after.

(light tense music) - How do you bring in so many different readers from an 89-year-old man to a middle-aged woman?

- I don't know, but I love getting reader mail from people who'll be like, you know, "I'm a 84-year-old retired woman, I'm probably your only one."

And I'm like, I wanna start a fan club, like a club for all you people, because there's a lot of people of different demographics.

And honestly do have an answer for that.

I think the vulnerability of the character, I mean, he's obviously a tough guy, but he's not this square-jawed superhero, perfect.

He has a lot of vulnerabilities, as we all do.

And so I like to kind of balance his strengths and his weaknesses, and I think that brings people into the story.

And also every character in the book is important to me, and I want to make that character make sense to the reader.

If they're good, if they're bad, or if they're just sort of neutral, I want the reader to care about them when you're in that, because we're both readers and we've read books where you think, "I can't wait till it gets back to the good part," you know?

And so I wanna make (laughs) the entire story something that pulls the reader along.

- It is always such a delight to chat with you.

- [Mark] It's great to see you again, J.T.

- Thank you.

And thank you for watching "A Word On Words."

I'm J.T.

Ellison, keep reading.

(bell dings) - [Mark] I've met several SAD guys and they're all like, "We've all had four VA surgeries.

None of us are ninjas."

Like, (laughs) "You're a hero."

(light tense music)