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The author, Mark Graney, discusses his new book, Sentinel, which is set in both Washington and Ghana. He talks about the extensive research he did in Ghana, including visiting the US Embassy and speaking with diplomats. He also discusses the political situation in Ghana and the outside influences that can cause instability. Graney highlights the growing role of China in Africa and their "belt and road initiative." He also touches on the presence of mercenaries in Africa and the real-life hydroelectric dam on the Volta River that is featured in the book. Graney explains his process for naming characters and discusses the inclusion of a CIA character in the story. Overall, the book is action-packed and touches on real-world issues happening in Africa. You You You You You You Morning mark. Hey there. How are you? Yeah, I'm sorry. I missed you last time. Oh, no problem at all I'll tell you, you know, we don't need these reminders. But you know when you lose the Internet, it's like Well, the TV doesn't work. This doesn't work. I don't know. We're pretty reliant I guess so anyway, but life shuts down Well I really enjoyed the book And I'll you know, we'll just get started here because I think this is a great opportunity welcome On the line with us today Mark Graney He's the author of course of the gray man novels and now the armored series. The new book is Sentinel where we follow the exploits of Josh Duffy and his wife Nikki and their kids and they work for the State Department and Hey mark, I gotta ask you the action takes place in both Washington and Ghana in Africa How much research did you have to do when it came to Ghana? Because I know you've been you've traveled widely when you do your books Yeah, I have traveled widely and I had never been to West Africa. I've been in North Africa so I did go to Ghana last November and Spent a week and a half or so there and Spent a few days at the US Embassy in Ghana because as you said the the protagonist and his wife work for the State Department He works in diplomatic security and she's a Foreign Service officer and they're over there with their kids so I got to see what life was like for diplomatic security agents and for the Marines there at the embassy and you know spent time Talking to the ambassador and the deputy chief of mission and and a lot of other people like that So it was really good research and actually something I'm super fascinated with in an earlier life I try to get into the State Department So I always wonder you know how my life would be different it would be different if I Saw myself in an embassy when I was a younger person you get a good view of it now Is it no I'm? Not aware or not knowledgeable as they as I probably should be of the situation in Africa is Ghana a Pretty safe spot because I know that's brought out in your book that Ghana is one of the most stable Countries in that community in that area of West Africa. Is that the case? Yeah, that is the case It's right in the middle of the African coup belt those and there have been eight coups in the last three years including Three or four coups in nations that border Ghana, but it's considered a stable democracy Although they're having an election this year and they're having some some problems and you know The book really talks about all the outside influence in these African nations and how that can cause problems So there's Chinese and there's Russians and there's Iranians, but there's also the US I mean where I make a point in the story that the US actually tried to foment a coup and in Ghana in 1980s, so You know, there's a there's a lot of blame to go around over, you know, the the instability there, but it is all very realistic I know if you're in your book and we're talking with my granny author of Sentinel just came out new book It's action-packed and it just runs fast from start to finish You're only two pages in and you're finding out about China Involvement funding I guess you know sort of projects in Africa that and then in return for a Power and and to control and get the natural resources and that's really going on, isn't it? It's very much going on. The Chinese have started something called a belt and road initiative where they've invested a trillion dollars into Developing nations and a lot of it is is good It's railways and ports and highways and government buildings, but there's a dark side to that they're trying to sort of Ensnare these nations in debt and when they can't pay back for these things they're going to give up some sovereignty and also in the case of the African Union building and in Ethiopia The Chinese built it for the African Union and then immediately bugged it and hacked into the computers Of the African Union, so there's there's a dark side of this at all And of course, my book is more about the dark side than the good side It's fascinating to read well, you know, and it's of course based on what's going on right up to the minute one of the things that I think you bring out in this one and in previous books to but the the role of the mercenary in In the world today. Is that a growing problem or is it's just one that's always been there or the folks that are professional soldiers Yeah, it's it's always been there and honestly I think it might be a little bit less of a problem than it used to be because It's it's been outlawed in South Africa used to have this company called executive outcomes, which actually did some good work, but they're also mercenaries But Russia has had the Wagner group and they they're doing just straight-up mercenary stuff in Africa So it's definitely still happening I have I count amongst my friends many people that work for civil private military Corporations and I don't consider them mercenaries and they certainly don't consider themselves mercenaries Because you know, there's a lot of you know, reasonable things in the security world that can be done by private companies But there are some you know, there's a there's a dark element to that as well And that's what I bring forth in the book. I was going to say you're your character Josh Duffy He doesn't consider himself a mercenary Yeah, I think he kind of caught he's easy considering that over is at some point in the book I'm just trying to remember that mark. Yeah, so in the first book in the series armored He worked for a civilian military contracting company down in Mexico a very bad company but his you know, his his aims were legitimate and you know, he was a Patriot and doing what he thought was right now. He's working for the State Department It's a few years later and he thinks he has a stable job He doesn't because this is one of my books and so of course everything, you know, it would be good exactly everything everything has to go asunder, but you know, he he never considered himself a you know, a mercenary when he was doing contracting work a Yeah we're going back to Ghana where a lot of the action takes place and And it's a dam is a big focus in this in your book Is that is that a real thing or did you just conjure that up? It is a real thing. I and I actually got to go to the hydroelectric dam on the Volta River And I just was looking for a location That needed to fit a lot of different things for a big set piece in the story and it's a big part of the book but yeah, it's really out there and I got to go to the area actually got to get on the river and you know canoe on the river and and sort of see what it was all like There in a rural part of Ghana because the capital city Accra is very bustling capital Capital, but you don't have to get that far out of the city to really get into You know into the developing world And I think that's it's great that you you placed it in Africa only because I think many of us Aren't as familiar as you we should be With with the the countries in Africa and it's important to kind of keep pace with with what's going on around the world And you do that? You know, I know you you've got a great series in gray man and now a new one with with armored I've got a new one for you mark if you want to get a little more cerebral Mm-hmm Bob Gorski CIA. I Think that's a great character in this book that we won't tell everyone about it because it involves the plot but interesting the character has that That based on something you've seen or was that just you know a character you made up You know, it's based on My love of the genre and my love of spy novels and I've read a lot of books where you have this sort of Wisened grizzled older CIA guy or defense attache a guy at an embassy and and his His views maybe don't maybe they run counter to what the ambassador Is doing so the course is a Bob Gorski character was a fun character for me to write because I can I can see this Guy I can't say I'm when I was in Ghana at the embassy there You know, I got to talk to everybody there, but I did not you know out with CIA that they're often another room and So I can't claim that I met my own version of Bob Gorski But he's an important character for the part for the story and he's a lot of fun to write Yeah, he comes off very well Now I have to ask you and this is one thing I always enjoyed with the Harry Potter books Among other things obviously the humor and everything that went into that but the names Did that a novelist has to give his characters his or her characters you you have some good ones here Kang Shukun yes, it is a Sort of an interesting fellow and and Lev Belov. I don't know if I'm pronouncing these right, but you are you are Did you you have to work at this or you know? How do you come up with all those names because they work, you know, you just oh, yeah, that's the way it is But how do you do that? It is complete construction work to come up with all those names. This is my 20th published novel So, you know knows there's probably 30 or 40 characters in each book. So there's hundreds and hundreds of characters I've written over the years and I do all these different things to find out names a lot of times I'll look at the the volleyball team of whatever country that the person's from because it's like nobody knows famous volleyball guys women's It's like you can't do soccer players or basketball or anything like that. I have to do you have to do volleyball I don't think anyone there's probably three volleyball players on planet Earth that people know the names of so I do that But I pretty much exhausted all that. I mean every Russian volleyball players been used in the book So I you know, I just look for a little interesting combinations of names and so there's a character in this book named Isaac Opoku, who's a Police officer and I had a one of my own tour guides was this guy named I Isaac and And I just patterned him. He wasn't even in he didn't he wasn't a cop or anything But I just patterned him for the story. So it's it's fun to come up with the names A lot of times I'll change the name in a third draft of the book just because I'm like well It sounds a little similar to another name that's in the book And so sometimes I do this publicity and people will say, you know Tell me about Kang Shikun and I'll be like wait Who is that because I might have come up with that name at the end. Oh, yeah Different. Yeah. Yeah It's helpful to at the beginning of the book You have a list of all the characters and yeah, just so you can place them and and kind of you know You I don't know if I flip back to it a couple of times just like oh, yeah that guy and or so or that woman Or whatever was very helpful because you do have a lot of characters going on Yeah, no The the current events that the stream through your books because I know Wagner group the the Russian Outfit that was in the news. Well, I guess was a year or two ago With all that was going on there and in Russia How much of that do you like to incorporate in the book because obviously that's keeps it timely but You know, you almost have to really stay on your toes here, don't you? Totally and I really like creating fiction out of what's really happening in the world I think I would be terrible as a as a fantasy author or something like that because I'm looking for the grounded In my stories and then I make my stories bigger and bolder than then What's going on in the real world, but I like to take as many elements of that as possible So in the case of Wagner, which is was a Russian security company private security company, they've mostly been absorbed by the Russian military now, but there's a lot of them in Africa in a group called Africa Corps and they are just going out and being mercenaries and doing that sort of stuff so You know, I'm taking elements of reality and putting them in a big Fictionalized setting and that's kind of the way I like to write Well, the beauty of that is if somebody reads the book and then thinks oh, I'm gonna you know, obviously we you can go find out more about You know the story behind the headlines so to speak and maybe maybe get a little more informed Yeah, that was the thing that I when I was writing When I first started reading Tom Clancy, I was like wow, you know fiction. He was the first fiction author I read I was like this is fiction where you actually learn something But I have a lot of fun learning it the first Clancy book I got was Patriot Games and it was about the Irish Republican Army and I was actually studying them at the time and I was like, this is more fun to read these thrillers, but you are learning a lot of you know Reality of what's going on? And that's you know, hey, whatever it takes. It's like For teaching history in school, you know, whatever it takes you someone to catch on and think oh exactly Yeah, yeah, what one of the things I noticed there there and I think you've talked to us before about this Because of the the amount of research you do You know, you got a lot of guns in this book Many books because obviously you do this stuff with it when they're fighting wars or battles they're going to use the the latest but a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle is there is there such a thing or Now there is such a thing that's a pretty much the standard military Russian sniper rifle and has been since the 1970s I think Wow. Yeah, this is like an ak-47 which you've all heard of but it's the kind of the long rifle version of that bolt-action Is that taking the? Extra time to gather in all the information about these weapons that everyone uses Yes, I'm kind of an aficionado. I own a lot of the weapons that are in the books I don't have a dragunov, but I have another Long-range, you know sniper rifle and I've done a lot of training to learn about the books So, you know, I like I like putting that information in there I have read people's books and felt like there's too much guns in there or too much detail on guns So I try and balance it out. Some people might think that I put too much in about the guns But I like you know There's there's all sorts of reality like I talk about the communication systems And you know in the case of the state department security officers, I mean a big part of their job is You know buying door locks For their apartments and things of that nature. That's part of the security mission at the embassy So I you know was over there talking to the to the security guys and I was like listen This is going to be a big crazy wild story, but I want it to be you know I want I want it to be as realistic as possible So I do like to put in a lot of you know real notes in that vein mark, uh Do you I mean, how do you how do you manage it? Or maybe you don't? uh have to worry about it because maybe the scenes take care of themselves, but I mean, do you ever think in terms of the body count of a book like how many people have died in this thing? Um too many too few. I mean what what's goes through your mind there? Yeah, you know, I honestly when you Are as deeply steeped in the news and what's going on around the world and stuff like that It's um, and it's possibly get a little numb to it. Uh, you know, russia's losing 1100 troops a day I've never i've never i've never written a 700 page book where uh, you know, uh, you know, 1100 people died Um, so there's really I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know Uh, you know 1100 people died, um, so the reality sadly Is a little like that. It's just this type of book. I you know, I some have had more Violence than than other but I mean it's it's sort of a key element in this type of a thriller novel and um, there's kind of no way around it and uh, you know, sadly, you know, I can probably open up my uh cnn.com right now and Right, you know just read five chapters bigger than anything that happens in my book one of the the uh notes on the you know, the Items on the back cover. I noticed uh, where they just you know pulled from reviews, I think said That you were in the upper echelons of special ops thriller authors I thought is is that a category when you have you ever thought of that special ops thriller author? Yeah, I should introduce you that way You can dial down these genres and make them more of a sub-genre and more, you know, so it's like I write Fiction and then I write thrillers and then I write, you know political military espionage thrillers and then Then you can dial it down into uh into that. I've unlike many authors i've Ever served in the military or been involved in any special operations So I have to do a lot of extra research that some people don't have to do They know it off the top of their head, but I try and get those details right when I can as well I also like the the fact you've got uh, the providence journal, uh comment in there because I think you told me the last time, uh, you know, the The reviewer or a friend of yours or just someone who's been obviously close to your books Um, yeah, it remains on the paper, which is a great story right? There's a former newspaper guy I like to hear success stories that uh, people are still in business Yeah, yeah, he's an author named john land a great great guy good friend and he's with the journal still or is that um I don't know if he writes freelance for them or he's okay I'm, not really i'm not really sure but I know he does put out those uh those reviews yeah, it's it's going to be a funny world when Well, I think new york times washington post those guys will probably carry on but when you have some of the other Smaller towns and I mean don't mean tiny because providence isn't a teeny tiny town But when those papers, you know sort of cease their Involvement, um, I think it's going to be an impact but hey, that's enough. That's for another day Maybe we can work that into one of your stories uh, well I have to say I was the tennessee and our daily newspaper is manufactured in national And sent to us and uh, it's it's really sad because you know when I grew up I was a paperboy Afternoon paper we used to have two papers a day and now everybody now everybody can get their news curated so they can be told exactly what they want to hear and um, It's uh, it's there's nothing good will come from that. I'm I feel very strongly We should tell people too that don't already know that your dad uh worked, uh, you know, I think was the Simon editor a news editor at the other tv station there didn't yeah, he was the uh, Assistant general manager of news and public affairs, but he had every job there from uh, being a cameraman working his way up and He uh, he worked until he was almost 80 years old as a producer there So he uh, he had 50 years at the nbc affiliate in memphis, tennessee So you had plenty of news experience, uh through him uh that resonates on your pages Yeah, I grew up around the news and now mark as far as the uh, The schedule goes you are one busy guy. You're churning out books at a rapid rate here and obviously they're a great series So you kind of have to stay with it Um, what's next for you is back to gray man. Is it something new or is it onto armored? What's what's on your to-do list here? Right now i'm halfway through the next gray man And it's called midnight black will be out next february And when i'm done with that i'm going to work on a another book And then after that i'll go back into the next gray man Um, i'm I my intention is to slow my pace down I think i've been telling people that for five years, but um, it's becoming more and more Necessary. Um, I wrote two books last year that bled into this year So i've i've put up two books in the last four months and um, I won't say it's excessive i'm, i'm really happy with the quality of the books as they turned out, but Um, you know, I I wouldn't mind a slower pace. So I might go to one book a year I know you thanked a lot of folks in in the book. Uh, Talked with mark grainy author of sentinel the latest book and uh, you had a page in there where a lot of folks were acknowledged and uh, quite a group there at the publisher because Uh, obviously they they would probably nod in agreement. Yeah, you want to slow your pace down? Okay mark right after this next book They're probably Uh, because uh Yourself Yeah, absolutely. That is the case. They like me to do more not less Well mark, hey as always it's been great talking with you. Um, What I want to remind folks again, the book is sentinel. It's a it's out now and it's part of the armored series That you started what a couple of years ago and uh gray man's coming. So if you're uh waiting on that one Uh mark's busy on it. He's halfway through it. So uh, it's coming folks Okay, great, thank you You too. All right. Take care All right, thanks