This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. We've got one of my favorite contemporary artists, artists, authors and artists. Yeah. Sure, Mark Greeney, if you're a fan of the gray Man thriller series, his newest installment, Chaos Agent, just came out in February. Mark, I gotta go get a copy. I haven't read that one yet. He's got a new one. He's got a new one out and it's a whole
new series that's called Sentinel. So we've gotten to know and love Court Gentry in your gray Man series. Josh Duffy is a different kind of protagonist.
Yeah, he's absolutely very different. Whereas the gray Man is, you know, perhaps the best assassin in the world. Josh Duffy is a very blue collar family guy who in the first book in the series, Armored, was a civilian military contractor who's in a lot of peril. But now it's three years later. He and his wife, who's a former author army officer, are working for the State Department and they're in Africa and they find themselves there with their family as a coup kicks off, So he's a
lot more grounded character than the Gray Man. He has some vulnerabilities, but he's also very, very skilled at his job very well.
It's almost reciprocal too, because Mark Greenie doesn't have family. He's always on the go, he's always being hunted. Josh Stuffy, sounds like he has more of a normal or what we would think of as a normal life.
Yeah, exactly. He's definitely he's trying to get out of the peril that he's been in, whereas the Gray Man goes looking for it. So in that respect, they're very different. And you know, he's just a guy that wants to pay his bills and keep his family safe and raise his kids, and of course the world has other plans for him.
He's set to Ghana, which doesn't sound like the best assignment to me. You've worked with these people in real life. When they get an assignment like that, is it more of a duty calling kind of attitude, or is it a man, I'm going to work through this and get out of here as quick as i can.
Yeah, it's funny they look at it differently than we do. That's the harder assignments are probably the bigger career builders for a lot of them. But Ghana is actually a relatively stable country, but it's right in the middle of the African coup belt and there's been eight coups in the last three years in this region. So you know that I went there thinking, Okay, this is the place a State Department person would bring his family because it is safe enough, but it's still you know, there's still
a definite security situation they have to deal with. And my hero, Josh is a diplomatic security officer, so it's his job to keep people at the embassy safe. So he's very much, you know, lined up with the dangers that are happening in the country.
And if you'll forgive me as Josh a spinoff character that appeared in some of the gray Man novels, or is he he's a completely new character, completely new character.
I was doing research for gray Man, and I was training at some firearms schools around a lot of civilian military contracts, and I was just kind of taken by their blue collar you know outlook. You know, their guns are tools that they use in their job, just like if they were a plumber or something like that. And so I wanted to write a character about that type of a character. But now he's working for the US government and he thinks he's.
Got a stable job, somewhat stable, but at least he's got a stable family, or does he.
He absolutely does. His wife, Nicole, who is very much a center of the book. She's not just the wife sitting home, you know, worrying about her husband. She's involved. And he has two kids, a nine year old and a six year old, and so they're all in Africa together, and you know, he's got to protect the ambassador and try and break up this coup and protect the kids at the same time.
And so if you're a family person, this is going to be a lot more relatable. I think the name of the book is Sentinel. Mark Greeney is the author, and it's about a zoo character Josh Duffy does is his wife also an operative.
She is, she works for the State Department, but she's a political officer. She's a polic service officer, so she's not involved with security like he is. But they go together out with the ambassador on a press junket out into the country and they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the coup kicks off, so they are in equal amounts of danger, even though they have different jobs.
We're talking about the newest character from Mark Greeney and his book Sentinel that's out now. And Mark, you do a great job of weaving a story. I think mainly because you've been there. You've done that.
Yeah, I mean, I went to Ghana and I spent days with the State Department there and the Marines there and the diplomatic security guys, and I got up into the countryside and went to some locations that are in the book and got to meet a lot of very interesting Gunans and you know, learn about it. I usually have six seven months to write a book, so I do as much research as I can, and the time that I have, I always wish I could do more, but it really does help make it a better story.
And firearms, You're always very good about the details of firearms. I'm an enthusiast, so that's why I enjoy it. And that's usually if there's going to be a mistake made in one of these types of novels, I'm going to catch it and it's going to be a firearms mistake.
Yeah, Yeah, And I get those mistakes someone will write me and they'll be like, yeah, the mulbile velocity is five pounds or whatever, five miles an hour faster than you said it is or something like that, and you know, you get it as you get it, as correct as you can. I don't want to belabor the points on bombs, but no, yeah.
I have friends who are like that, right right, right, right, shut up? Oh, shut up? Did the gun doll off good? Speaking of which, how often do you get to the range these days?
I've kind of had a pretty good state of going pretty recently. I got a staccato pistol, which is a really nice handgun, and so now I just want to get up the range all the time. But I mean it's probably probably been the range a half dozen times this year, so let's say once a month. But that's a lot for me with my writing schedule.
Yeah, I imagine. So I've been very interested in a lot of the full sized twenty two long rifle pistols we have been seeing, and I've been firing a couple of them. Makes a trip to the range a lot less expensive.
That's the first thing I thought. I always tell my wife when we watch an action movie I'm like, I'm the only person that's watching this movie and thinking every time somebody pulls the trigger, I'm like, that's a dollar, that's all.
Yeah, yeah, or worse more than that, a dollar thirty eight or dollar thirty The Sentinel, an African coup may force Josh Duffy, the main character, to choose between his mission and his family. I have my guest as to which he chooses, but you need to read Mark Greenie's book Sentinel, which is out now everywhere you get books. I think you've done it again and I'm looking forward
to this as a summer read. Thank you so much, Lee, thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Iheartsmediadentation