Out of the Dark

August 1, 2018

Taken from a group home at age 12 and trained in a black-box government program aimed at creating assassins, Evan Smoak escaped and dedicates his life to helping the truly desperate. A plan to mop up the remaining orphans has Orphan A gunning for him. Fourth in the New York Times best-selling series.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 29, 2018
Evan Smoak (aka Orphan X) faces his biggest challenge yet in bestseller Hurwitz’s explosive fourth Orphan X novel (after 2018’s Hellbent). Taken from a foster home at 12 and raised in the Department of Defense’s deep black ops Orphan Program, Evan has long since left the fold and now operates as the Nowhere Man, a private force for vengeance for those in need. The one-time head of the program, Jonathan Bennett, is now the U.S. president and is using all of his official and unofficial resources to eliminate the remaining orphans. Bennett is particularly focused on Evan’s first mission in 1997, and Evan’s only conclusion is that he must kill the most protected man in the world. Meanwhile, there’s a young man in L.A. who needs Evan’s special form of channeled violence and an incipient relationship with a single mother district attorney to pursue. Chases, hand-to-hand combat, and gunfights make the short chapters speed by like automatic gunfire. Hurwitz is at the top of this game in this gritty thriller. 150,000-copy announced first printing; author tour. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency.

November 1, 2018
Evan Smoak aims high in this fourth bloody installment in the fast-moving Orphan X series (Hellbent, 2018, etc.).Evan is Orphan X, and he is on a daunting mission: "Killing the President was going to be a lot of work." To be sure, the morally corrupt President Bennett is trying to cover up his crimes by wiping out everyone in the darker than dark Orphan program that he once oversaw. The two men know they're out to get each other, and Bennett is "the most inaccessible and heavily guarded man on the face of the planet." Further, Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Naomi Templeton is given the job of protecting him against X, so simply shooting up a presidential motorcade won't cut it. Meanwhile, there's a distinct subplot--fans already know that Orphan X is the Nowhere Man, who helps certain people who call his encrypted cellphone. This time the desperate caller is Trevon Gaines, who's found his entire immediate family slaughtered but is kept alive by the drug-smuggling killers who call him a "retard." Trevon is a highly sympathetic character who notices precise details wherever he looks, only eats yellow or orange food, and frets about the "Scaredy Bugs" in his head. Protecting him and his lone remaining relative is a side job for Orphan X that lets him do what he does best: kill a lot of criminals. Oh yeah, and there's a dude called Orphan A who doesn't have his fellow orphan's best interests at heart. The plotting is clever, the action is nearly constant and usually over-the-top, and X has something resembling a moral core. Bad guys get what bad guys deserve, and we don't need no stinkin' due process.Hurwitz fans will certainly enjoy this latest entry in the series, while those unfamiliar with it might like to read the books in order. They'll be hooked.

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October 15, 2018
Evan Smoak roars back with a vengeance in the fourth Orphan X thriller. Smoak, a former assassin for the U.S. government (he now comes to the aid of people who need his special skills to solve their problems), has decided that there's only one way to avoid suffering the deadly fate of several of his fellow Orphans: he must kill the man who set in motion the plan to exterminate the Orphans and, thus, erase the program's existence. There's one small hiccup, though: the man behind the plan is now the president of the U.S., the most protected person in the world. Given that each entry in the Orphan series finds Evan tackling his most difficult mission so far, one might think that, by the fourth time around, the author might be falling into the trap of so many movie sequels that must be bigger and more explosive than what came before. But, no: this installment is as tightly plotted, efficiently written, and, yes, as curiously plausible as its predecessors. If Jack Reacher fans haven't checked out Smoak yet, they're missing a sure bet.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)