Retrophisch Review: The Hard Line

The saying is that cats have nine lives. I feel the amount of life iterations Court Gentry has gone through over the course of the Gray Man series exceeds the nine lives of cats, and would wreck lesser men. Yet Mark Greaney continues to find ways to keep Court and the other characters fresh as they face new adventures and new adversaries.

The Hard Line is no different, as The Gray Man and company launch a new off-the-books covert operation at the behest of the CIA’s current Deputy Director of Operations, a 100% deniable outfit he can point at problems the US would rather not have its fingers on. And also because they are the only people the DDO can currently trust, since the US intelligence community has a leak.

If there’s anything I love in an espionage thriller, it’s screwing over the Russians or the Chinese, and rooting out traitors. And if you can do both, well, it’s just double the pleasure, double the fun.

As Court’s first mission under the new venture meets with unexpected resistance, Zack is still recovering from his injuries from the previous novel’s foray in to Russia, and Zoya is unavailable recovering from her time in the gulag, meaning the new venture is hard-pressed for results from the get-go. Along the way, a personal connection to Zack’s past raises the stakes to a degree no one saw coming.

Throughout, Greaney continues to defy formulaic character exposés and plots that plague some thriller series. Zack’s continued development from where he started fifteen books ago has been something of a delight. I thought Mark’s last novel, Midnight Black, was incredible, and would be hard to beat, but The Hard Line may very well be one his best novels ever. Definitely recommended!

5/5 phins
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