Burner

Bestseller Greaney’s solid 12th Gray Man novel (after 2022’s Sierra Six) finds former CIA officer Court Gentry (aka the Gray Man) sinking the yachts of wealthy criminal Russians on the behalf of an ex-pat Ukrainian oligarch, a freelance job Gentry considers honorable in the face of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, but next is locating his lost lover, former SVR operative Zoya Zakharova. In Zurich, Swiss banker Alex Velesky meets with Russian financial planner Igor Krupkin, who wants to strike at Russia because his son died while fighting in Ukraine. Krupkin has two phones loaded with state secrets regarding money that Russia has used to finance secret illegal operations in the West. He wants Velesky, who also hates Russia, to give one phone to the owner of a forensic accounting firm and the other to a shady lawyer so the material can be organized and made public. Gentry and Zoya are hired independently of each other to retrieve the phones. The two plots run parallel until the missions intersect and the two lovers are reunited and face almost impossible odds. Impressive spycraft and action scenes that are intense without being cartoonish make up for the drawn-out plot. Series fans will be satisfied. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Feb.)