Sentinel by Mark Greaney

Published by Berkley on June 25, 2024

I give Mark Greaney credit for writing some of the best action scenes in the thriller industry. Still, I’m a bigger fan of his Gray Man series than his Armored books. The Gray Man is antisocial, justifiably paranoid, and a bit of an asshole. That’s why I like him. Josh Duffy is friendly, likable, dependable, and has as much personality as a GI Joe action figure. The only trait that makes him seem human is his PTSD, and that only manifests itself in nightmares that have no impact on his work. He’s too boring to make me look forward to his next adventure.

Duffy works for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. His wife is a State Department Political Officer. They begin the novel in Washington D.C., where Duffy protects a European Union official when a riot breaks out at a protest attended by her daughter.

Duffy and his wife are then jointly assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Ghana. They get to take their kids because Ghana is a relatively stable democracy so what could go wrong? Duffy expects the assignment to be dull, but a Chinese intelligence officer is working to orchestrate a coup that will increase China’s influence in western Africa. The agent has enlisted the services of a South African mercenary who once worked with (and was despised by) Duffy. They were employed as “private security,” a polite term for mercenaries, in Afghanistan and Syria.

The South African in turn enlists the services of Russian mercenaries who work for Wagner. The Chinese agent has also recruited rabble rousers from Togo and other surrounding nations. Unbeknownst to the South African, the Chinese agent also employs Islamic terrorists, with whom the South African would not ordinarily work. It’s good to know that people who overthrow democracies have principles.

Duffy is assigned to a team protecting the US ambassador during a trip with Ghana’s president and a UN representative as they make political appearances in Ghana. Duffy's wife is part of the diplomatic team because of course she is. The trip takes them to a hydroelectric dam that the South African has just captured in stage one of the coup. Bad weather causes them to arrive a day early, upsetting the coup timetable. Shootouts and explosions ensue.

From that point onward, the novel is a series of action scenes, primarily involving Duffy and a Ghanian cop as they try to keep the dam from being blown up while protecting diplomats and Duffy's wife. They also need to prevent the South African from recovering a laptop computer that would provide embarrassing evidence of Chinese involvement in the coup.

The novel's credible atmosphere is obviously the product of meticulous research. The action is fast but perhaps a bit too predictable. When, for example, the South African kidnaps Duffy’s kids (thriller fans will see that coming from the second they learn the kids are traveling to Ghana), Duffy’s plucky daughter displays the kind of bravery that triller fans are used to seeing from the children of action heroes. While the story holds no surprises, it generates excitement through constant motion. I can easily recommend it to action novel fans, but Sentinel lacks the spark that Greany brings to his Gray Man novels.

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