Book Review: Orphan X

Synopsis:

The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. A kind of modern-day Robin Hood, it’s said that when he’s asked by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them.

But he’s no legend.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those who have nowhere else to turn.

He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets — i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X.

But Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear.

Now someone is on his tail. Someone with similar skills and training. Someone who knows Orphan X. Someone who is getting closer and closer. And will exploit Evan’s weakness — his work as The Nowhere Man — to find and eliminate him.

Review:

Author Gregg Hurwitz has penned 22 thrillers, including two thrillers for teens. In addition to novels, he writes screenplays and spec scripts, and written, developed, and produced television programs. He is also a comic book writer, having drafted stories for Marvel (Wolverine, Punisher) and DC (Batman, Penguin). As it all that weren’t enough, he has published academic articles on Shakespeare, taught fiction writing at USC and guest lectured at UCLA and Harvard. To research his thrillers, he has sneaked onto demolition ranges with Navy SEALs, swum with sharks in the Galápagos, and gone undercover into mind-control cults. He is actively working to end polarization in politics and on college campuses, producing several hundred commercials and publishing editorials in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Huffington Post, and The Bulwark.

Orphan X is the first of six (so far) installments in the series. In it, he introduces Evan Smoak, the Nowhere Man, who risks his life to help people who are have no one else to turn to. He carries a RoamZone telephone that he answers by asking, “Do you need my help?” After he renders assistance, he instructs his clients to “find someone who needs me. Give them my number: 1-855-2-NOWHERE.”

Evan lives in a 7,000 square foot apartment high above Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The building, known as Castle Heights, was once quite posh, but its prime has passed, making it the perfect place for Evan to reside without drawing attention to himself. His eclectic and frequently annoying neighbors are hilariously determined to get him to attend homeowners association meetings.

His apartment is a technological fortress, equipped with sensors, cameras, and a 400 square foot vault that he accesses through what appears to be a normal shower wall. But his computers, arsenal, and other tools are stored there. Although not an expert hacker, he has enough skill and assistance from professionals to have hacked into federal databases, as well as those maintained by police departments, so he has access to a vast network of information that assists him with the cases he handles. He de-stresses by drinking designer vodkas and meditating, and sleeps in a high-tech levitating bed.

Evan was a child when he was selected to be trained as part of a top-secret government Orphan program. His handler, Jack Johns, took him into his home and taught him everything he would need to know to carry out his missions. Evan Smoak is not his real name and in the program he was known only as Orphan X. He came to be known as one of the most skilled Orphans, his talents surpassed only by Orphan Zero, and has left a trail of death and subterfuge around the world. His resources are vast, transferred and accounted for through complex electronic configurations and numerous shell companies registered outside the United States.

As the story begins he is called upon to help a young woman who has been ensnared by a local cop in sex trafficking. Her younger sister is about to be indoctrinated and Morena Aguilar has to save the innocent young girl from that fate that has made her life miserable. So she calls Evan for help.

But Evan doesn’t take the information he receives from those who call on him for help at face value. He investigates their claims of distress, stakes out the locations where they agree to meet, ensuring that he hasn’t been followed, and thoroughly researches their backgrounds. Only when satisfied that it is safe to do so does he get involved.

Now someone seems to know things they shouldn’t. They’ve determined Evan’s whereabouts when that shouldn’t be possible. Gotten too close. When Evan figures out that the attempts on the life of the woman he is trying to help were actually attempts on his own life, he is thrown completely off balance. Her story and background seem to check out, but something is not right about the case. He has to figure out what it is in order to save her . . . and himself.

Complicating matters is the Deputy District Attorney, Mia, who resides in Evan’s building. She’s the widowed mother of nine-year-old Peter. And Evan feels that he has to help her when she is in danger, even though he does not handle more than one case at a time. Getting to know Mia is dangerous for both of them, but for different reasons. She offers Evan a glimpse into a kind of life he has never known. He has never been part of a family or experienced the kind of harried, messy, but loving day-to-day existence that is Mia’s life as she juggles her home responsibilities and career. But he knows that becoming part of Mia’s world will endanger her and her son. And letting them into his is, of course, unthinkable.

Interspersed between chapters detailing current events, flashbacks tell the story of Evan’s time with Jack. Hurwitz provides deftly-timed glimpses into the brutal way he was trained to be “a weapon” for solo, offline operations, and the advice dispensed by Jack, including the Ten Commandments to which Evan must adhere at all times. Hurwitz describes the day that Evan lost Jack, and the reasons Evan blames himself and is haunted by that day’s events. On that day, he started a new life. He “decided to put his training to personal use. A pro bono freelancer, helping others who could not help themselves. Either way he had a calling, aligned with the heading of his own moral compass.”

The Tenth and most important Commandment was seared into muscle memory: Never let an innocent die.

Orphan X is a gripping, fast-paced exploration of a uniquely complex character. Jack’s training of Evan was different than the training provided the other Orphans in the program. He taught Evan to respect life, telling him, “The hard part isn’t turning you into a killer. The hard part is keeping you human.” Because Evan is both an assassin and a philanthropist, his two natures are often in conflict. Despite what he was trained to be and do, Evan is not just likable, but remarkably empathetic. His duality is relatable, his conflict demonstrating that Jack succeeded at teaching him to retain his humanity, even as he leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

Hurwitz hurls Evan into a cat-and-mouse game full of shocking twists that unfold at an unrelentingly fast pace. The story is populated with supporting characters that are deliciously despicable and quite often meet ends that they deserve. There is simply no good place to stop reading because virtually every chapter ends with a cliffhanger that propels the story forward. The cleverly-plotted mystery keeps readers guessing until the very e3nd with Hurwitz expertly setting the stage for the next installment, The Nowhere Man.

Orphan X is an enthralling, ingenious thriller featuring a fascinating protagonist who has many more secrets to discover, layers to explore, and desperate clients to assist. It’s a perfect blend of action, intrigue, high-tech fun, and an engrossing character study.