Speaker 1: This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast
Speaker 1: More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. We've
Speaker 1: got one of my favorite contemporary artists, artists, authors and artists. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: Mark Greeney, if you're a fan of the gray Man
Speaker 1: thriller series, his newest installment, Chaos Agent, just came out
Speaker 1: in February. Mark, I gotta go get a copy. I
Speaker 1: haven't read that one yet. He's got a new one.
Speaker 1: He's got a new one out and it's a whole
Speaker 1: new series that's called Sentinel. So we've gotten to know
Speaker 1: and love Court Gentry in your gray Man series. Josh
Speaker 1: Duffy is a different kind of protagonist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's absolutely very different. Whereas the gray Man is,
Speaker 2: you know, perhaps the best assassin in the world. Josh
Speaker 2: Duffy is a very blue collar family guy who in
Speaker 2: the first book in the series, Armored, was a civilian
Speaker 2: military contractor who's in a lot of peril. But now
Speaker 2: it's three years later. He and his wife, who's a
Speaker 2: former author army officer, are working for the State Department
Speaker 2: and they're in Africa and they find themselves there with
Speaker 2: their family as a coup kicks off, So he's a
Speaker 2: lot more grounded character than the Gray Man. He has
Speaker 2: some vulnerabilities, but he's also very, very skilled at his
Speaker 2: job very well.
Speaker 1: It's almost reciprocal too, because Mark Greenie doesn't have family.
Speaker 1: He's always on the go, he's always being hunted. Josh Stuffy,
Speaker 1: sounds like he has more of a normal or what
Speaker 1: we would think of as a normal life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. He's definitely he's trying to get out of
Speaker 2: the peril that he's been in, whereas the Gray Man
Speaker 2: goes looking for it. So in that respect, they're very different.
Speaker 2: And you know, he's just a guy that wants to
Speaker 2: pay his bills and keep his family safe and raise
Speaker 2: his kids, and of course the world has other plans
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: He's set to Ghana, which doesn't sound like the best
Speaker 1: assignment to me. You've worked with these people in real life.
Speaker 1: When they get an assignment like that, is it more
Speaker 1: of a duty calling kind of attitude, or is it
Speaker 1: a man, I'm going to work through this and get
Speaker 1: out of here as quick as i can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny they look at it differently than we do.
Speaker 2: That's the harder assignments are probably the bigger career builders
Speaker 2: for a lot of them. But Ghana is actually a
Speaker 2: relatively stable country, but it's right in the middle of
Speaker 2: the African coup belt and there's been eight coups in
Speaker 2: the last three years in this region. So you know
Speaker 2: that I went there thinking, Okay, this is the place
Speaker 2: a State Department person would bring his family because it
Speaker 2: is safe enough, but it's still you know, there's still
Speaker 2: a definite security situation they have to deal with. And
Speaker 2: my hero, Josh is a diplomatic security officer, so it's
Speaker 2: his job to keep people at the embassy safe. So
Speaker 2: he's very much, you know, lined up with the dangers
Speaker 2: that are happening in the country.
Speaker 1: And if you'll forgive me as Josh a spinoff character
Speaker 1: that appeared in some of the gray Man novels, or
Speaker 1: is he he's a completely new character, completely new character.
Speaker 2: I was doing research for gray Man, and I was
Speaker 2: training at some firearms schools around a lot of civilian
Speaker 2: military contracts, and I was just kind of taken by
Speaker 2: their blue collar you know outlook. You know, their guns
Speaker 2: are tools that they use in their job, just like
Speaker 2: if they were a plumber or something like that. And
Speaker 2: so I wanted to write a character about that type
Speaker 2: of a character. But now he's working for the US
Speaker 2: government and he thinks he's.
Speaker 1: Got a stable job, somewhat stable, but at least he's
Speaker 1: got a stable family, or does he.
Speaker 2: He absolutely does. His wife, Nicole, who is very much
Speaker 2: a center of the book. She's not just the wife
Speaker 2: sitting home, you know, worrying about her husband. She's involved.
Speaker 2: And he has two kids, a nine year old and
Speaker 2: a six year old, and so they're all in Africa together,
Speaker 2: and you know, he's got to protect the ambassador and
Speaker 2: try and break up this coup and protect the kids
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 1: And so if you're a family person, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a lot more relatable. I think the name
Speaker 1: of the book is Sentinel. Mark Greeney is the author,
Speaker 1: and it's about a zoo character Josh Duffy does is
Speaker 1: his wife also an operative.
Speaker 2: She is, she works for the State Department, but she's
Speaker 2: a political officer. She's a polic service officer, so she's
Speaker 2: not involved with security like he is. But they go
Speaker 2: together out with the ambassador on a press junket out
Speaker 2: into the country and they happen to be in the
Speaker 2: wrong place at the wrong time when the coup kicks off,
Speaker 2: so they are in equal amounts of danger, even though
Speaker 2: they have different jobs.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the newest character from Mark Greeney and
Speaker 1: his book Sentinel that's out now. And Mark, you do
Speaker 1: a great job of weaving a story. I think mainly
Speaker 1: because you've been there. You've done that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I went to Ghana and I spent
Speaker 2: days with the State Department there and the Marines there
Speaker 2: and the diplomatic security guys, and I got up into
Speaker 2: the countryside and went to some locations that are in
Speaker 2: the book and got to meet a lot of very
Speaker 2: interesting Gunans and you know, learn about it. I usually
Speaker 2: have six seven months to write a book, so I
Speaker 2: do as much research as I can, and the time
Speaker 2: that I have, I always wish I could do more,
Speaker 2: but it really does help make it a better story.
Speaker 1: And firearms, You're always very good about the details of firearms.
Speaker 1: I'm an enthusiast, so that's why I enjoy it. And
Speaker 1: that's usually if there's going to be a mistake made
Speaker 1: in one of these types of novels, I'm going to
Speaker 1: catch it and it's going to be a firearms mistake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And I get those mistakes someone will write
Speaker 2: me and they'll be like, yeah, the mulbile velocity is
Speaker 2: five pounds or whatever, five miles an hour faster than
Speaker 2: you said it is or something like that, and you know,
Speaker 2: you get it as you get it, as correct as
Speaker 2: you can. I don't want to belabor the points on bombs,
Speaker 2: but no, yeah.
Speaker 1: I have friends who are like that, right right, right, right,
Speaker 1: shut up? Oh, shut up? Did the gun doll off good?
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, how often do you get to the
Speaker 1: range these days?
Speaker 2: I've kind of had a pretty good state of going
Speaker 2: pretty recently. I got a staccato pistol, which is a
Speaker 2: really nice handgun, and so now I just want to
Speaker 2: get up the range all the time. But I mean
Speaker 2: it's probably probably been the range a half dozen times
Speaker 2: this year, so let's say once a month. But that's
Speaker 2: a lot for me with my writing schedule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine. So I've been very interested in a
Speaker 1: lot of the full sized twenty two long rifle pistols
Speaker 1: we have been seeing, and I've been firing a couple
Speaker 1: of them. Makes a trip to the range a lot
Speaker 1: less expensive.
Speaker 2: That's the first thing I thought. I always tell my
Speaker 2: wife when we watch an action movie I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: the only person that's watching this movie and thinking every
Speaker 2: time somebody pulls the trigger, I'm like, that's a dollar,
Speaker 2: that's all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, or worse more than that, a dollar thirty
Speaker 1: eight or dollar thirty The Sentinel, an African coup may
Speaker 1: force Josh Duffy, the main character, to choose between his
Speaker 1: mission and his family. I have my guest as to
Speaker 1: which he chooses, but you need to read Mark Greenie's
Speaker 1: book Sentinel, which is out now everywhere you get books.
Speaker 1: I think you've done it again and I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to this as a summer read. Thank you so much, Lee,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Speaker 1: Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
Speaker 1: weekday afternoons from five to seven and Iheartsmediadentation