Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm gonna pat myself on the backa lot with a tongue firmly in cheek
(00:03):
as I proceed, though, So, Mark Greaney is one of my very,
very favorite thriller writers. I thinkeverybody knows that. When people ask
me in private, even when he'snot on the show with me. Who
are my very favorite thriller writers?I usually name two, and Mark Graney
is one of them. And thegray Man series is just one of the
(00:25):
great things. And Mark Graney alsoabout a year ago, put out a
book called Armored, and we hadMark on the show to talk about it,
and it's a whole It's not evena spin off of gray Man.
It is completely different. Come allnew characters, has nothing to do with
gray Man. And after I readthat book and I had Mark on the
(00:45):
show, I said, Mark,you should really do a sequel, and
you should make the wife a biggercharacter. Her name is Nicole in the
second book than she was in thefirst book, because she seems really interesting,
and because Mark Graney does everything Itell him to do. I now
have in my hand Mark Greeney's newthriller novel called Sentinel, that I finished
reading already, and Mark, thankyou for following my instructions. I appreciate
(01:08):
it. Thank you for the tiprod the checks in the mail. You
know. So, I'm going tostart with a question that I think no
other interview has interviewer has asked you, and probably will ask you because most
people don't read to this level ofdetail. Why did you dedicate the book
to your mother in law? Oh? My gosh, I have a wonderful
(01:32):
mother in law. My mom passedaway before I was published. Both of
my parents passed away before I foundany success in life, and so I
was married previously, and I hada very nice mother in law, a
great mother in law, and mywife's mom she's eighty three and she's a
pistol and she's just literally one ofmy favorite people in the world. I'm
(01:53):
just so lucky that I met mywife big for a bunch of reasons,
but one of them now I havethis amazing mother in law that I never
thought I would have. Does yourmother in law read the manuscripts before you
publish them and give you any tipsor does she wait until the book's done?
(02:14):
Well, first off, nobody readsthem other than my editor beforehand.
And that's not because I'm snooty.It's because I'm always so beyond my deadline.
People are always like, can Ibe one of your beta readers,
And I'm like, you don't understand. When I write the end, it's
three weeks late and my editor's breathingdown my neck. But Anne does read.
(02:34):
My mother in law does read mybooks after the fact. Fantastic for
that. So there's two different linesI want to go down with you here.
First, the plot in this bookfits in very well to I think
a significant geopolitical thing going on rightnow, which is China gaining footholds and
(02:58):
resources in Africa, and that's beengoing on for a while, but in
this book you posit them getting moreaggressive and maybe going after a country that
is nominally one of the freer countries. Just tell us a little bit about
your thinking about the plot. Yeah, I'm always interested in kind of the
geopolitical space when I write these books. At the end of the day,
(03:19):
they're you know, action adventures,and they involved the heart and soul of
human beings. But I like toread about what's going on and learn about
it. And you know, Iwent to Africa, got on the ground
there, and the Chinese have donethis thing called the Belton Road Initiative where
they've invested a trillion dollars all aroundthe developing world, and there are lots
of up and up reasons for themto do that, totally non nefarious,
(03:44):
but at the same time there's alot of the farious stuff going on,
debt trapped diplomacy where they sort ofentrap these small countries into owing the money.
Also, they're building government buildings andthen after the buildings are built,
people go in and find out theChinese have put bugs in there or back
doors into the hacking the computers andthings of that nature. So in my
book, China is a bad actorin the region. I think every other
(04:10):
nation outside of Africa has done somesort of bad act inside of Africa going
after natural resources, including the USAunfortunately. So I don't want to say
that we're we're above the fray.But in this book, the Chinese are
the villains. So in the Graymanseries, the Gray Man himself is borderline
superhuman and has all these unbelievable badassskills and training and all this ninja like
(04:35):
stuff. In the Armored series,and now with your new book Sentinel,
the main dude Josh Duffy is uh. I mean, he's kind of a
badass in his own right, buthe's much more relatable as kind of a
normal, normal ish person. Sowhat's it like for you to write two
characters that are so different in thoseways. Well, I think it was
(04:58):
necessary to write different. I thinkit makes it more fun for me to
write. I wanted Josh to bea grounded guy. He's a family man,
he's a you know, in thefirst book, he is a high
threat uh, civilian military contractor.He's it's a blue collar job, blue
collar guy just trying to pay forhis you know, like pay his bills
(05:20):
and you know, keep his family, you know, afloat. And in
the second book, I knew atthe end of that book because things went
so crazy, and as you said, you don't have to have read the
first one, but he had justbarely got out of his situation, you
know, alive, and I knewthat too. He couldn't say, oh,
I'm just going to go back anddo that one more time, So
(05:40):
I wanted to create a different versionof him. So it's three years later
and he and his wife have stablejobs in the State department, but he's
still in the security field and they'rethey're sent to Africa with their children to
uh to work at an embassy inGhana, and uh yeah, it's just
I just like making a more groundedcharacter. The gray Man's fun, but
this is fun too. We're talkingwith Mark Greeney. His new thriller novel
(06:03):
is called Sentinel. I've finished italready. It's the second in a new
series that started with Armored, whichwas also great book. And these are
fun and interesting characters. I mean, I probably should focus almost all on
this, but of course you dotwo things at the same time. So
(06:24):
what are you writing right now?Right now, I'm working on the fourteenth
gray Man book. I'm on tourfor a Sentinel, and I'm in Hilton
Head, South Carolina, and gotup in six point thirty and worked in
the hotel and working over at afriend's house now before I go to the
signing. And that book is duein August and it'll be out next February.
(06:44):
It's called Midnight Black, and soit'll be number fourteen. Wow.
Okay, so I saw the grayMan movie that was made already. Are
you looking at any projects for screenfor either another gray Man or for Josh
Duffy. Yeah, so the JoshDuffy series, the first book, Armored,
has been picked up by a LionsgateTV, so they're trying to develop
(07:08):
that as a TV series and I'mhoping Sentinel would be the second season of
that series. And I'm hoping towrite more books in this series. He's
a fun character to write, andI've got ideas for where he and his
wife and kids could go. Butyeah, they've written another script for the
second gray Man film. I don'tknow when they're going to start production on
(07:28):
that at all, but I'm hopingI hear something pretty soon. The first
one came out two years ago,so it's about time they got back to
it. I think the more commonthing when books get turned into movies or
TV series is that the people makingthe thing for the TV screen basically like
give the author the heisman and saywe don't need you around here. We
(07:49):
got the book. That's enough,see you later. Every once in a
while, an author gets significant involvement. What's your situation with these prij Are
you involved? And do you evencare that much? If you're involved in
whatever ends up on the screen Withthe gray Man, I was not really
involved the directors had me go outto la and I spent a couple of
(08:11):
days with them before they wrote thefirst draft of the script. But that
was the extent of my involvement.And they were good with me the whole
time, and they would send methe scripts as they were updated or whatever.
But I wasn't on set. Iwasn't a producer with Armored. I
think I will have a little bitmore involvement just because the way the contract
was set up. You know,we'll see, we'll see if it happens.
(08:33):
It's always a super long shot thatsomething's going to actually get made.
But you know, as to thequestion do I want to be involved,
that's I always feel like my noseis in the next year's book that I'm
desperately trying to write and get done, so that that idea of putting on
another hat at this stage in mylife doesn't sound that appealing. But I
you know, I would like toat least, you know, be tangentially
(08:56):
involved. Yeah, I thought thatwould be your answer. I thought,
Yeah, I thought your answer wouldbe something along the lines of, as
long as they keep it pretty faithfulto the book, then I'm too busy
to really get into more detail withwhatever they're doing. So that was kind
of what I thought. Let mego back one more question with you for
(09:18):
Sentinel, and again, if you'rejust joining Mark Greeney's great new thriller,
it's called Sentinel. It's in thenew Josh Duffy series, which is not
a spin off from Gray Man,it's a completely different thing. And the
first one in the series was calledArmored, also great, but you don't
need to read Armored first. Youcould just read Sentinel. I recommend that
you read them both. So thevast majority of this book is set in
(09:39):
the African nation of Ghana. AndI've been to Africa a few times,
but only to southern Africa. I'venever been over there to West Africa.
Ghana is a former British colony.It's a country that is thought of pretty
well, and I think that's partof the reason you picked Ghana. Like,
if you're going to try to destabilizea place, it makes it more
interesting if they're trying to destable asa place that's already stable. I'm interested
(10:01):
in your personal experience with the researchthat you did going over there. Tell
me something about that. Yeah,So you're you're absolutely right it is the
most stable democracy in a very unstablepart of the world, so that's not
a very high bar. It's rightin the middle of the African coup belt,
so there have been eight coups inthe last three years in this region.
And I needed a place. Ineeded a nation that was, you
(10:24):
know, in the developing world,but it's a place that where Josh and
Nicole would take their children with themto go work for the State Department.
So I needed I couldn't you know, necessarily go to you know, some
of the rougher areas. So Iwent to Ghana. I got to spend
days with the US embassy there,the diplomatic security people. I got to
go out into the hinterland up tothis big hydro electric dam, which is
(10:46):
a big part of the book,and Methica Nand's and I had a really
great experiences. It's a fun,interesting country. This is not a big
part of the book. But I'mjust going to ask you, just because
I'm interested, what was what wasthe most interesting food you ate in Ghana.
Oh, there's a thing called joeOff rice, which I will enjoy
(11:07):
till the day I die. It'sreally really good, and it's it's uh,
it's just rice with pork and spicesand plantains, and uh. I
ate that every chance I could get. That's your new comfort food. Mark
Greeny's new thriller novel is called Sentinel. I encourage you go buy it and
read it a wonderful summer read whileyou're sitting by the beach or at the
(11:28):
pool, or in your house orwherever you wherever you like reading. All
right, Mark, I'll let yougo sign books in Hilton Head, South
Carolina. I appreciate your time asalways, and and and really as always,
thanks for just writing such great stuff. You really are one of my
very very favorite writers. Thanks alot. Roth stick here. Okay,
see yeah,
I'm gonna pat myself on the backa lot with a tongue firmly in cheek
(00:03):
as I proceed, though, So, Mark Greaney is one of my very,
very favorite thriller writers. I thinkeverybody knows that. When people ask
me in private, even when he'snot on the show with me. Who
are my very favorite thriller writers?I usually name two, and Mark Graney
is one of them. And thegray Man series is just one of the
(00:25):
great things. And Mark Graney alsoabout a year ago, put out a
book called Armored, and we hadMark on the show to talk about it,
and it's a whole It's not evena spin off of gray Man.
It is completely different. Come allnew characters, has nothing to do with
gray Man. And after I readthat book and I had Mark on the
(00:45):
show, I said, Mark,you should really do a sequel, and
you should make the wife a biggercharacter. Her name is Nicole in the
second book than she was in thefirst book, because she seems really interesting,
and because Mark Graney does everything Itell him to do. I now
have in my hand Mark Greeney's newthriller novel called Sentinel, that I finished
reading already, and Mark, thankyou for following my instructions. I appreciate
(01:08):
it. Thank you for the tiprod the checks in the mail. You
know. So, I'm going tostart with a question that I think no
other interview has interviewer has asked you, and probably will ask you because most
people don't read to this level ofdetail. Why did you dedicate the book
to your mother in law? Oh? My gosh, I have a wonderful
(01:32):
mother in law. My mom passedaway before I was published. Both of
my parents passed away before I foundany success in life, and so I
was married previously, and I hada very nice mother in law, a
great mother in law, and mywife's mom she's eighty three and she's a
pistol and she's just literally one ofmy favorite people in the world. I'm
(01:53):
just so lucky that I met mywife big for a bunch of reasons,
but one of them now I havethis amazing mother in law that I never
thought I would have. Does yourmother in law read the manuscripts before you
publish them and give you any tipsor does she wait until the book's done?
(02:14):
Well, first off, nobody readsthem other than my editor beforehand.
And that's not because I'm snooty.It's because I'm always so beyond my deadline.
People are always like, can Ibe one of your beta readers,
And I'm like, you don't understand. When I write the end, it's
three weeks late and my editor's breathingdown my neck. But Anne does read.
(02:34):
My mother in law does read mybooks after the fact. Fantastic for
that. So there's two different linesI want to go down with you here.
First, the plot in this bookfits in very well to I think
a significant geopolitical thing going on rightnow, which is China gaining footholds and
(02:58):
resources in Africa, and that's beengoing on for a while, but in
this book you posit them getting moreaggressive and maybe going after a country that
is nominally one of the freer countries. Just tell us a little bit about
your thinking about the plot. Yeah, I'm always interested in kind of the
geopolitical space when I write these books. At the end of the day,
(03:19):
they're you know, action adventures,and they involved the heart and soul of
human beings. But I like toread about what's going on and learn about
it. And you know, Iwent to Africa, got on the ground
there, and the Chinese have donethis thing called the Belton Road Initiative where
they've invested a trillion dollars all aroundthe developing world, and there are lots
of up and up reasons for themto do that, totally non nefarious,
(03:44):
but at the same time there's alot of the farious stuff going on,
debt trapped diplomacy where they sort ofentrap these small countries into owing the money.
Also, they're building government buildings andthen after the buildings are built,
people go in and find out theChinese have put bugs in there or back
doors into the hacking the computers andthings of that nature. So in my
book, China is a bad actorin the region. I think every other
(04:10):
nation outside of Africa has done somesort of bad act inside of Africa going
after natural resources, including the USAunfortunately. So I don't want to say
that we're we're above the fray.But in this book, the Chinese are
the villains. So in the Graymanseries, the Gray Man himself is borderline
superhuman and has all these unbelievable badassskills and training and all this ninja like
(04:35):
stuff. In the Armored series,and now with your new book Sentinel,
the main dude Josh Duffy is uh. I mean, he's kind of a
badass in his own right, buthe's much more relatable as kind of a
normal, normal ish person. Sowhat's it like for you to write two
characters that are so different in thoseways. Well, I think it was
(04:58):
necessary to write different. I thinkit makes it more fun for me to
write. I wanted Josh to bea grounded guy. He's a family man,
he's a you know, in thefirst book, he is a high
threat uh, civilian military contractor.He's it's a blue collar job, blue
collar guy just trying to pay forhis you know, like pay his bills
(05:20):
and you know, keep his family, you know, afloat. And in
the second book, I knew atthe end of that book because things went
so crazy, and as you said, you don't have to have read the
first one, but he had justbarely got out of his situation, you
know, alive, and I knewthat too. He couldn't say, oh,
I'm just going to go back anddo that one more time, So
(05:40):
I wanted to create a different versionof him. So it's three years later
and he and his wife have stablejobs in the State department, but he's
still in the security field and they'rethey're sent to Africa with their children to
uh to work at an embassy inGhana, and uh yeah, it's just
I just like making a more groundedcharacter. The gray Man's fun, but
this is fun too. We're talkingwith Mark Greeney. His new thriller novel
(06:03):
is called Sentinel. I've finished italready. It's the second in a new
series that started with Armored, whichwas also great book. And these are
fun and interesting characters. I mean, I probably should focus almost all on
this, but of course you dotwo things at the same time. So
(06:24):
what are you writing right now?Right now, I'm working on the fourteenth
gray Man book. I'm on tourfor a Sentinel, and I'm in Hilton
Head, South Carolina, and gotup in six point thirty and worked in
the hotel and working over at afriend's house now before I go to the
signing. And that book is duein August and it'll be out next February.
(06:44):
It's called Midnight Black, and soit'll be number fourteen. Wow.
Okay, so I saw the grayMan movie that was made already. Are
you looking at any projects for screenfor either another gray Man or for Josh
Duffy. Yeah, so the JoshDuffy series, the first book, Armored,
has been picked up by a LionsgateTV, so they're trying to develop
(07:08):
that as a TV series and I'mhoping Sentinel would be the second season of
that series. And I'm hoping towrite more books in this series. He's
a fun character to write, andI've got ideas for where he and his
wife and kids could go. Butyeah, they've written another script for the
second gray Man film. I don'tknow when they're going to start production on
(07:28):
that at all, but I'm hopingI hear something pretty soon. The first
one came out two years ago,so it's about time they got back to
it. I think the more commonthing when books get turned into movies or
TV series is that the people makingthe thing for the TV screen basically like
give the author the heisman and saywe don't need you around here. We
(07:49):
got the book. That's enough,see you later. Every once in a
while, an author gets significant involvement. What's your situation with these prij Are
you involved? And do you evencare that much? If you're involved in
whatever ends up on the screen Withthe gray Man, I was not really
involved the directors had me go outto la and I spent a couple of
(08:11):
days with them before they wrote thefirst draft of the script. But that
was the extent of my involvement.And they were good with me the whole
time, and they would send methe scripts as they were updated or whatever.
But I wasn't on set. Iwasn't a producer with Armored. I
think I will have a little bitmore involvement just because the way the contract
was set up. You know,we'll see, we'll see if it happens.
(08:33):
It's always a super long shot thatsomething's going to actually get made.
But you know, as to thequestion do I want to be involved,
that's I always feel like my noseis in the next year's book that I'm
desperately trying to write and get done, so that that idea of putting on
another hat at this stage in mylife doesn't sound that appealing. But I
you know, I would like toat least, you know, be tangentially
(08:56):
involved. Yeah, I thought thatwould be your answer. I thought,
Yeah, I thought your answer wouldbe something along the lines of, as
long as they keep it pretty faithfulto the book, then I'm too busy
to really get into more detail withwhatever they're doing. So that was kind
of what I thought. Let mego back one more question with you for
(09:18):
Sentinel, and again, if you'rejust joining Mark Greeney's great new thriller,
it's called Sentinel. It's in thenew Josh Duffy series, which is not
a spin off from Gray Man,it's a completely different thing. And the
first one in the series was calledArmored, also great, but you don't
need to read Armored first. Youcould just read Sentinel. I recommend that
you read them both. So thevast majority of this book is set in
(09:39):
the African nation of Ghana. AndI've been to Africa a few times,
but only to southern Africa. I'venever been over there to West Africa.
Ghana is a former British colony.It's a country that is thought of pretty
well, and I think that's partof the reason you picked Ghana. Like,
if you're going to try to destabilizea place, it makes it more
interesting if they're trying to destable asa place that's already stable. I'm interested
(10:01):
in your personal experience with the researchthat you did going over there. Tell
me something about that. Yeah,So you're you're absolutely right it is the
most stable democracy in a very unstablepart of the world, so that's not
a very high bar. It's rightin the middle of the African coup belt,
so there have been eight coups inthe last three years in this region.
And I needed a place. Ineeded a nation that was, you
(10:24):
know, in the developing world,but it's a place that where Josh and
Nicole would take their children with themto go work for the State Department.
So I needed I couldn't you know, necessarily go to you know, some
of the rougher areas. So Iwent to Ghana. I got to spend
days with the US embassy there,the diplomatic security people. I got to
go out into the hinterland up tothis big hydro electric dam, which is
(10:46):
a big part of the book,and Methica Nand's and I had a really
great experiences. It's a fun,interesting country. This is not a big
part of the book. But I'mjust going to ask you, just because
I'm interested, what was what wasthe most interesting food you ate in Ghana.
Oh, there's a thing called joeOff rice, which I will enjoy
(11:07):
till the day I die. It'sreally really good, and it's it's uh,
it's just rice with pork and spicesand plantains, and uh. I
ate that every chance I could get. That's your new comfort food. Mark
Greeny's new thriller novel is called Sentinel. I encourage you go buy it and
read it a wonderful summer read whileyou're sitting by the beach or at the
(11:28):
pool, or in your house orwherever you wherever you like reading. All
right, Mark, I'll let yougo sign books in Hilton Head, South
Carolina. I appreciate your time asalways, and and and really as always,
thanks for just writing such great stuff. You really are one of my
very very favorite writers. Thanks alot. Roth stick here. Okay,
see yeah,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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