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Orphan X (Orphan X, #1)

Gregg Hurwitz

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Why we're reading this: Nowhere Man is an assassin focused on helping people who are in trouble and he functions like a covert op…more
[close] Nowhere Man is an assassin focused on helping people who are in trouble and he functions like a covert operations specialist with an intelligence background.

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Mar 13, 2018 Kronos Ananthsimha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The level of paranoia achieved in Orphan X has been achieved only once before, more than 30 years ago, in Ludlum's classic - The Bourne Identity. Gregg Hurwitz explores serious psychological and sociological problems of our current world in this book. He mixes it up with awesome but real technology, complex martial arts, moral conflicts and dilemmas, combat medicine, spy-craft, communications technology and hacking. The accuracy in these fields that Gregg displays in his writing shows the time h The level of paranoia achieved in Orphan X has been achieved only once before, more than 30 years ago, in Ludlum's classic - The Bourne Identity. Gregg Hurwitz explores serious psychological and sociological problems of our current world in this book. He mixes it up with awesome but real technology, complex martial arts, moral conflicts and dilemmas, combat medicine, spy-craft, communications technology and hacking. The accuracy in these fields that Gregg displays in his writing shows the time he has spent researching.
The Orphan program is a fictional concept where young kids are taken away from their foster homes and trained to be the deadliest black ops assassins. There are no records of them and their training makes them unique from other fictional hitmen.
Evan Smoak is Orphan X and is trained by Jack Johns who once tells - 'It's easy to make you a killer. The problem is keeping you human.' Evan learns various martial arts from various senseis, hacking and shooting from the best in the private sector, resistance to pain from special forces operators and many others. He also learns literature and philosophy from Jack Johns.
When asked to kill a fellow Orphan, Evan goes rogue and settles down in the high rise of Los Angeles. There he spends his time and resources aiding people desperately in need of his help. He becomes a guardian angel but faces one problem after another.
Evan doesn't hide away from society like Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher. Orphan X is a unique character as he hides in plain sight at a penthouse in a building filled with nosey civilians. He attends House Owners meetings and is unable to socialize as he has been raised to live in solitude.
There is a subplot of a weird romance between Evan and his neighbor, Mia, who's a widow living with an adopted son. Evan and Mia help each other in many ways. He's disciplined but lonely and Mia has a family but leads a messy life. Through the contrast between them, Evan learns a lot about himself and the society that he actually lives in.
Evan eventually realizes that the people he is helping out are pawns in a larger game in which the former members of the Orphan program use to target him. The second half of the book is a race to see exactly how fast your adrenaline can flow. The multiple plot twists at the end will leave you awestruck.
This series is a great item for vodka aficionados as Evan collects and drinks the best brands of vodka. The Wilson Combat 1911 and the Benelli M1 are Evan's favorite weapons of choice. Gregg Hurwitz has fired every weapon and has learned every style of martial arts that he has used in his writing. I found the fight scenes a bit tough to understand as I'm uninitiated in the field of martial arts.
Hurwitz criticises many social problems and brings out an intriguing and new concept with this series.
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Dec 17, 2019 Richard Guerrero rated it liked it · review of another edition

I feel this book was way over the top. I’m going to try the next book of the series to see if it gets any better. I have a high bar for this book because I read a couple of websites that compared his character with Mitch Rapp by Vince Flynn and Scott Harvath by Brad Thor. This one was just way too much over the top and no reality. It was closer with Dewey Andreas which was also way over the top. With the other books there was a lot of terrorist activity which was closer to today’s reality where ...more

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