Review by Booklist Review
Evan Smoak, Orphan X, aka the Nowhere Man, explodes into action in the seventh installment in this exciting series. This time, the former U.S. government assassin's client isn't the usual sort of downtrodden, helpless individual who usually seeks Evan out. Instead, it's a drug dealer, but not just any drug dealer. Aragon Urrea is a dangerous and mostly despicable person, but he does have his own sense of honor, and he loves his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a rival cartel. Can Evan put aside his personal feelings and help a man recover his daughter? The Orphan X series has always been about moral ambiguity and the razor-thin line separating right from wrong, but this novel takes Evan even farther down the dark road than he's been before. The question is: How far will Evan be able to go before darkness overwhelms him completely? Evan Smoak is one of thrillerdom's most compelling characters, and Hurwitz keeps revealing new aspects of his complex personality. Another sure-fire hit.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In bestseller Hurwitz's excellent seventh Orphan X novel (after 2021's Prodigal Son), Aragón Urrea, a South Texas drug lord, approaches former black ops assassin Evan Smoak (aka the Nowhere Man), who assists people in seemingly hopeless situations as a way of paying penance for past sins. Urrea's 18-year-old daughter, Anjelina, has been kidnapped by a ruthless Mexican cartel. Despite doubts about helping a criminal like Urrea, Smoak agrees to try to rescue Anjelina. Along the way to the satisfying resolution, Smoak is forced to scrutinize his own life, in which he has remained distant from those most important to him--in particular, love interest Mia Hall, a district attorney and single mother who's faced with a life-threatening surgery, and Joey Morales, a 16-year-old hacker extraordinaire who has become a surrogate daughter of sorts. Nonstop action and relentless pacing are matched by deeply philosophical and powerfully emotional undertones. Unlike comparable series that tend to lose steam after several installments, this series just gets better as it evolves. 200,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The iconoclastic Orphan X penetrates a Mexican cartel to rescue a South Texas beauty. When his daughter, Anjelina, is snatched from her 18th birthday party, drug kingpin Aragón Urrea reaches out to assassin Evan Smoak, aka Orphan X. It's pure luck that he's able to reach the righteous, reclusive killer, who's in seclusion after a harrowing free-fall escapade. Aragón's heavily guarded compound clearly indicates that he's no innocent, and the first tense meeting of the two powerful men simmers with the threat of violence, but stoic Evan has looked death squarely in the eyes many times before. The receipt of a cleanly decapitated head via FedEx--belonging not to Anjelina but to a man Aragón has undercover with the kidnappers--raises the stakes exponentially for the distraught Aragón, who assigns henchmen Kiki and Special Ed to assist Evan. Hurwitz gives his seventh Orphan X thriller an epic scope, writing with verve and color whether he's relating the pre-coital banter between Evan and his neighbor Mia Hall, documenting the tangled search for Anjelina, or depicting her gritty fight for survival, to which he devotes a generous portion of the tale. His pace is leisurely but impactful, full of genre set pieces, fight scenes and chase scenes, and tense showdowns. Each member of the large cast of supporting series characters, developed over previous installments, gets a turn onstage. The deeper Evan goes, the more challenges he faces, including his considerable doubts about the propriety of helping a character as disreputable as Aragón. Deadly sparks fly when the Nowhere Man--that is, Orphan X--meets the novel's archvillain, the Dark Man. A crackerjack thriller that briskly enhances the legend of Orphan X. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
