Midnight Black by Mark Greaney has a cover that immediately sets a bleak, icy tone. The frozen landscape, barbed wire, and guard tower scream prison camp in the middle of nowhere, and we can practically feel the cold just looking at it. It’s an effective and intriguing image that makes us want to know more.
That said, we’re not big fans of the author’s name dominating most of the cover. It’s the largest thing here, as if we’re supposed to pick this up based on name recognition alone. The title Midnight Black isn’t the most original, but at least it fits the cover’s atmosphere well—something dark and dangerous happening in the dead of night in a frozen wasteland.
Based on the Cover, We Think This Book Is About…
A Russian prison camp in Siberia, where conditions are brutal, and survival is anything but guaranteed. Since this is “A Gray Man Novel,” we assume the Gray Man is imprisoned there, likely for something political or spy-related, and now he’s trying to escape. Step one: Get out. Step two: Find warmth. Step three: Stay alive long enough to get revenge on whoever put him there.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
With his lover imprisoned in a Russian gulag, the Gray Man will stop at nothing to free her. The temperature barely rises above zero, and the guards at Penal Colony IK22 are determined to take their misery out on the prisoners—chief among them, one Zoya Zakharova. Once a master spy for Russian foreign intelligence, then the partner and lover of the Gray Man, she has information the Kremlin wants, and they don’t care what they have to do to get it.