Mark Greaney’s Gray Man Faces Deadly Artificial Intelligence in “The Chaos Agent”

Mark Greaney has made an impressive career out of looking for the “dark side” of things. His eyes and ears are finely attuned to what’s trending on a geopolitical scale, and it’s here — with almost prescient perception — that Greaney finds the key to unlocking the plot of his latest thrillers. 

In The Chaos Agent (Berkley), the lucky 13th book in his international bestselling Gray Man series, Greaney tackles Artificial Intelligence — imagining that the technology often touted as being progressive and “good for the economy” is instead weaponized for bad. Very bad. 

With its futuristic-style robots and hyper-advanced technology, this novel could have veered into science-fiction territory in another author’s hands. But Greaney, known for his extensive boots-on-the-ground research, says everything in the book is well within the realm of possibility. And that should make you nervous. 

“There’s nothing in this book that isn’t existing or emerging technology,” he says, in an exclusive interview with BookTrib. “There are some places where I might have done something with it that nefarious actors haven’t done with it yet, but even the robots, the equipment and stuff, there’s prototypes for versions of everything I’ve put in the book.” 

This is one of the messages Greaney wants readers to take away from The Chaos Agent, the fact that Artificial Intelligence is moving at a rapid pace. The computing power that goes into building AI has increased a staggering 10 billion percent since the year 2010, Greaney learned, and it’s doubling every six months. 

“A lot of people make fun of AI because it gets a lot of things wrong,” he says. “For instance, an AI-powered car gets in an accident and it’s all over the news. But no one mentions for every AI car accident, there are about 6,000 human being motor vehicle accidents. AI is in its infancy, and so when people say they’re not worried about AI because it isn’t sophisticated enough, I think they’re missing the point.”

Certainly, it’s not something the Gray Man can ignore, despite desperately wanting to. At the start of The Chaos Agent, he’s settled into a quieter life — he and his lover have relocated to Central America under new identities, hoping to stay off the radar of a long and growing list of enemies. It doesn’t take long before they’re tracked down and offered a job though, a gig they adamantly refuse. Except it’s too late — assassins are already on their trail.

What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase rife with all the things that make Greaney’s books stand out in a genre bubbling with action-packed series and character-driven thrillers. The Chaos Agent is a big book — “I set out to write a shorter book. This was mismanagement of the project.” — but it’s a fast read, setting the pace with high stakes, authentic fight scenes, crisp dialogue, and palpable suspense. There are already rumblings of this being one of the best thrillers of the year, a rumor Greaney humbly doesn’t acknowledge, instead looking ahead to the next projects on his horizon. 

First up is the second book in his Josh Duffy series, and then another Gray Man novel. He admits he hasn’t started it yet — he’s currently in the “bouncing around location ideas” stage of things, but he does have a general plot he’s excited about.

“Hopefully, this one goes smooth,” he says, with a light laugh. “The Chaos Agent was a hard book to write because there were a lot of twists and turns. Everyone thinks that comes easily…”

Perhaps not — but Greaney certainly makes it look so.