Gray Man Books in Order: How to read Mark Greaney’s Court Gentry series?

Mark Greaney is a writer mostly known for his work with (and without) Tom Clancy on the Jack Ryan (jr) book series. Of course, he also writes his own book series.

The story focuses on Court Gentry. A few years ago, he was the CIA’s best covert asset. Then, without warning, his masters at the Agency put him at the top of their kill list. Court fled his country and became an enigmatic killer for hire known as the Gray Man.

How to read the Court Gentry/Gray Man Series in Order?

Each entry in the Court Gentry book series offers a complete mission, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one book to the other. It’s better to read them in order.

1. The Gray Man – To those who lurk in the shadows, he’s known as the Gray Man. He is a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness…
2. On Target – When an old comrade Court Gentry (aka the Gray Man) thought dead returns to haunt him, his own life is put in the crosshairs. The man wants Court to complete a mission, with one crucial catch to his orders: Instead of a difficult assassination, the job will entail a near impossible kidnapping – and Court must return his quarry to the very CIA team that turned on him.
3. Ballistic – Years before, Eddie Gamboa had saved Court Gentry’s life. Now, Eddie has been murdered by the notorious Mexican drug cartel he fought to take down. And Court – aka the Gray Man – soon finds himself drawn into a war he never wanted. But in this war, there are no sides – only survivors…

4. Dead Eye – Court Gentry has always prided himself on his ability to disappear at will, to fly below the radar and exist in the shadows – to survive as the near-mythical Gray Man. But when he takes revenge upon a former employer who betrayed him, he exposes himself to something he’s never had to face before: a killer who is just like him.
5. Back Blast – Determined to find out what made the Agency turn against him, the Gray Man plans to get his hands on the men who sent him on his last mission, Operation BACK BLAST. What he doesn’t realize is that the questions that arose from his time as an American assassin are still reverberating in the U.S. intelligence community, and he’s stumbled onto a secret that powerful people want kept under wraps.
6. Gunmetal Gray – After five years on the run Court Gentry – aka the Gray Man – is back on the inside at the CIA. But his first mission makes him wish he had stayed on the outs when a pair of Chinese agents try to take him down in Hong Kong. Normally the Chinese prefer to stay eyes-only on foreign agents. So why are they on such high alert?

7. Agent In Place – Fresh off his first mission back with the CIA, Court Gentry – aka the Gray Man – secures what seems like a cut-and-dried contract job: A group of expats in Paris hires him to kidnap the mistress of Syrian dictator Ahmed Azzam to get intel that could destabilize Azzam’s regime.
8. Mission Critical – Court Gentry’s flight on a CIA transport plane is interrupted when a security team brings a hooded man aboard. They want to kick Gentry – aka the Gray Man – off the flight but are overruled by CIA headquarters. The mystery man is being transported to England where a joint CIA/MI6 team will interrogate him about a mole in Langley.
9. One Minute Out – While on a mission to Croatia, Court Gentry uncovers a human trafficking operation. The trail leads from the Balkans all the way back to Hollywood. Court is determined to shut it down, but his CIA handlers have other plans. The criminal ringleader has actionable intelligence about a potentially devastating terrorist attack on the US. The CIA won’t move until they have that intel.

10. Relentless – Intelligence operatives around the world are disappearing. When a missing American agent re-appears in Venezuela, Court Gentry, the Gray Man, is dispatched to bring him in, but a team of assassins has other ideas. Court escapes with his life and a vital piece of intelligence.
11. Sierra Six – Before he was the Gray Man, Court Gentry was Sierra Six, the junior member of a CIA action team. In their first mission they took out a terrorist leader, but at a terrible price-the life of a woman Court cared for. Years have passed and now The Gray Man is on a simple mission when he sees a ghost: the long-dead terrorist, but he’s remarkably energetic for a dead man. A decade may have gone by but the Gray Man hasn’t changed. He isn’t one to leave a job unfinished or a blood debt unpaid.
12. Burner – When you kick over a rock, you never know what’s going to crawl out. Alex Velesky is about to discover that the hard way. He’s stolen records from the Swiss bank that employs him, thinking that he’ll uncover a criminal conspiracy. But he soon finds that he’s tapped into the mother lode of corruption. Before he knows it, he’s being hunted by everyone from the Russian mafia to the CIA. Court Gentry and his erstwhile lover, Zoya Zakharova, find themselves on opposites poles when it comes to Velesky. They both want him but for different reasons…

13. The Chaos Agent – Someone is killing the world’s leading experts on robotics and artificial intelligence. Is it a tech company trying to eliminate the competition or is it something even more sinister? After all, artificial intelligence may be the deadliest battlefield game-changer since the creation of gunpowder. The first nation to field weapons that can act at the speed of computer commands will rule the battlefield. It’s an irresistible lure for most, but not for the Gray Man.

If our article about the Gray Man reading order is useful to you, don’t forget to bookmark it! You may also be interested in the Jericho Quinn series or Orphan X.