Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz

“Brilliantly conceived and plotted ... Read this book. You’ll thank me later.” -- David Baldacci The first in the international bestselling series! Who is Orphan X? The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them. But he’s not merely a legend. “Excellent...A smart, stylish, state-of-the-art thriller...might give Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books a run for their money.”—The Washington Post Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: An assassin. Evan was Orphan X—until he broke with the program and used everything he learned to disappear. But now someone is on his tail. Someone with similar skills and training who will exploit Evan’s secret new identity as the Nowhere Man to eliminate him. “Hurwitz melds nonstop action and high-tech gadgetry...in this excellent series opener.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Wow, this was gripping. I don't normally gravitate towards action thriller books but this one had me on the edge of my seat, unable to put the book down because I just had to find out what was going on.

Evan Smoak is the titular Orphan X, trained since he was a young boy in a secret government program to become a killing machine. He defaults from the program at some point and strikes out on his own, becoming The Nowhere Man and helping out people at the end of their rope to get out of sticky situations, while at the same time doing everything he can to avoid detection from his former employers. Things get sticky for him when protecting a client puts him in the crosshairs of an organization that seem to be getting too close to Evan for comfort.

I gotta admit first that I skimmed past a lot of the action sequences in this book. This isn't so much the fault of the book, but really because I'm not really good at visualizing fast-paced action in stories and it's all the same to me whether I read it closely or glaze over it. Even so though the book had plenty to keep me engaged and occupied. I was drawn into the gimmick of the book. Instead of having a roughed-up morally grey ex-assassin, Evan Smoak was unexpectedly a protagonist I found myself rooting for. He is surprisingly human despite his former occupation and genuinely just wants to do the right things and save people, not unlike Batman. The training that had been drilled into his subconsciousness since he was a child is crucial in saving his skin in his many assignments through the years, but Evan also struggles with how it also renders it more difficult for him to establish some human connection with people outside of his dangerous world, no matter how much he really wants to.

The book had me guessing about the identities and motives of the few characters that we do meet. The few twists in the end were not mind-blowing but still pretty decent and satisfying enough. Some thoughts on the ending: I was rooting for Mia all along so I'm pretty happy that she turned out to not be some kind of spy or agent somehow. I guess it would've been difficult for her to have been with a young child in tow, but you never know. I wasn't a fan of Evan's connection with Katrin, and she threw me the most for a loop. She felt so sus all along, but the book was also so upfront about how sus she was that I thought it must be a trick and she must actually be innocent. The narrative then had us where it wanted us when Memo Vasquez was introduced, and really had us thinking we maligned Katrin all this time - but nope. Shoulda trusted my gut feeling all along. It was unfortunate that Katrin/Danika died in the end, but I'm glad that her daughter Sam managed to get through it all okay. Also Mia and Peter getting through without serious harm was great as well, I'm pretty sure they'll somehow return in future instalments.

Very happy that I've read this at long last and will certainly be continuing the series.

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Wow. Just wow.

I firmly believe, and have said so repeatedly here, that it's not the novelty of an idea that makes a book worth reading, it's the execution. But for some reason, because I've seen/read this story (at least what one can tell from the blurb) so many times, I put off reading it. That was stupid. There's a reason some stories, some ideas are told so many times: when done well, they are great.

That's what we've got here. Evan Smoak is an Orphan (he's also an orphan, but that's not all that important). From a pretty young age, he's been trained as an off-the-books special operative for the US government, with a tie to only his handler. No other connection whatsoever to any covert agency, budget, oversight. Nothing can possibly go wrong with that, right? At some point he runs into another Orphan and is struck by the differences between the two – clearly, Evan's training involved the cultivation of a conscience and a modicum of ethics. This splash of humanity gets this human weapon into trouble and he leaves the program.

But it's not like he's got a backup plan for his life, he's trained for only one thing, so he becomes The Nowhere Man. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him...maybe you can hire, well, the A-Team. Because The Nowhere Man can't be hired. If he helps you, all he asks is that you find someone else in trouble and give them his phone number. Evan goes on for some time like this, helping people who can't help themselves, getting some justice for those who are let down by the system, etc.

Until one day, things go pear-shaped when meeting a new client, and suddenly Evan finds himself (for the first time in his life) the hunted.

About the same time that his professional career is blowing up (almost literally), he finds himself having a personal life. Until now, Evan's lived a pretty monkish life – free from personal ties, anyway. A lonely existence to be sure. and he starts to have friends? Not surprisingly, at all, this adds some complications to his already pretty complicated week.

This is an exciting read, fast-paced, energetic, incredibly violent – the fight scenes are great. This is essentially a Jason Statham movie in text form (although Statham always looks like someone who could star in an action flick and Evan doesn't). It's fun, it's impossible to take seriously, (but I can't imagine that Hurwitz expects anyone to). Evan's The Punisher without the anger, The Equalizer without the age, Jason Bourne without the memory issues, James Bond without the government backing/British accent, John Wick without the dog or criminal record.

Okay, it's clear I don't know what to say about Orphan X at this point . . . this is a fun read, I'm glad I finally got around to it, and I'm looking forward to the sequels. If you like action flicks, give it a shot.

Superior thriller. Somewhat like a higher-tech Reacher book.

A brilliant first in a new series I'm excited for

This book had two very important differences to the many other series like it: it had heart and it was written almost poetically. This is the first book I've read in this action hero genre where we found out so much about the main characters history, had him bonding with characters and had him actually suffering. This made me keep reading as it added a whole new layer to the action, fights and gadgets that I usually read these stories for. Also the series has a really cool premise that I'm excited to read more of. As aforementioned, its also written in a way that, at times, I found almost poetic with metaphors and similes galore.