Midnight Black: A Gray Man Novel

The brisk latest entry in Greaney’s Courtland Gentry series (after Sentinel) finds the ex-CIA operative bereft and unmoored. Though Court has been told that his lover, former Russian intelligence agent Zoya Zakharova, has been executed in a Moscow prison, he refuses to believe she’s dead. Desperate to sneak into Russia and rescue her, he carries out contract assassinations for the Romanian mob in exchange for safe passage. When the mobsters betray him, Court knocks some heads, leaving him in need of a new strategy. Then Matthew Hanley, his former CIA handler, learns that Zoya is indeed alive, and is being held in the same prison as the wife of Natan Yarovoy, a jailed dissident. Hanley comes to Court with an audacious plan: a joint mission between Ukrainian military forces and Russian insurgents to rescue Yarovoy and his wife, which would allow Court to swoop in and save Zoya. Soon, however, Zoya learns that her imprisonment was little more than a trap for Court. Greaney’s action scenes are as kinetic and chaotic as ever—especially an exhilarating chase through the Moscow subway—but it’s Court’s tender humanity when it comes to protecting his allies that shines brightest. This is one of Greaney’s best yet. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Feb.)