Please Tell Me This Isn't the Last Orphan!

The Last Orphan - Greg Hurwitz

It’s not normal for Evan Smoak, otherwise known as Orphan X, to find himself shackled to a bench in a prisoner transport. Truth be told, it took a large, well-coordinated, and very well-trained team of America’s finest to land him in this predicament. In fact, the only way that even worked is that X’s only chance to slip the trap would have been to gun down an innocent FBI agent… and he doesn’t do that to innocent people. That’s how he ended up talking to the person who put the whole capture operation in motion, Victoria Donahue-Carr. You’d think the POTUS would be more grateful, given that X is essentially the only reason she’s sitting in the oval office.

But no, the Prez wants to make a deal: she’ll let X go IF he works his particular magic on Luke Devine, a kingmaker who’s apparently built an empire through coercion and blackmail, the guy who apparently stands in the way of Donahue-Carr’s reelection plans. Hint: she wants Devine “rubbed out.”

Needless to say, X has other plans. Once free (you knew that would happen, right?), X is about to go on his merry way when he gets the call. Answering with his signature phrase – “Do you need my help?” – X, aka the Nowhere Man, suddenly has a new quest: a pair of dead bodies that, as luck would have it, trace back to Tartarus. That’s the mansion and party palace where Devine casts his net for new victims. And just like that, X is back on the President’s job.

His problem? Regardless of what Donahue-Carr wants him to do, Devine doesn’t appear to qualify for the ultimate exercise of X’s talents. He's weird, yes. But is he evil? Evan just can’t tell. On the other hand, Devine's six-man security team, all dishonorably discharged Marines, are a walking nightmare. Now that is something he can work with…

…and work with it he does.

Eight novels into the Orphan X series (including Prodigal Son and Dark Horse), Gregg Hurwitz’s hero is moving ever closer to a semblance of a normal life. Oh, sure, he’s still wrapped up in a big ol' OCD cocoon, but hey: over the last seven installments he’s collected a couple of human entanglements: a teenaged protégé-slash-”niece” hacker with a big dog, a potential love interest (and her adolescent son) and even a friend. Maybe even two, if you include a certain ex-Orphan. Just where Devine is going to slot into the milieu, however, remains a mystery…

Sprinkled with humor and generously larded with bad guys getting their just deserts at the hands of The Nowhere Man, The Last Orphan is just the latest in one of the best thriller series out there. Unlike so many of the genre’s writers who bog down their plots with details of weapons and tactics embedded in reams of turgid prose, Hurwitz can actually write. With X he’s created a character who, at first seemed simplistic and stereotypical but who is growing into a fully-fleshed character as the series progresses. Who knows: he might even get a cat some day!

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I received an advance reader copy of The Last Orphan in exchange for my honest review.