The Last Orphan by Gregg Hurwitz

Published by Minotaur Books on February 14, 2023

After an uncertain start, the Orphan X novels have followed an upward trending arc. Gregg Hurwitz continues that ascent in The Last Orphan.

The action begins when Evan Smoak visits the hospital where the woman who won his heart is receiving care. Despite taking precautions, Smoak is captured after a chase through hallways and stairways and streets and a parking ramp. His captor is Naomi Templeton of the Secret Service. Being captured, even by an elite team of counter-assault agents, makes Smoak wonder if he’s losing his edge, as does missing a small target from a distance of twenty feet, a shot that he is fully capable of making.

Smoak is on a sort of special parole, the terms of which he has repeatedly violated. Rather than sending him to Gitmo, Templeton puts him on a video call with the president, who wants a favor from Smoak — a favor he can trade for his freedom, albeit on a leash. Smoak, of course, will immediately slip the leash.

The favor involves finding and assassinating Luke Devine, a wealthy man who might be a psychopath but is certainly a narcissist. Devine is skilled at manipulating others to get what he wants. Deniable blackmail is one of his tools. The president believes Devine has become too powerful. Perhaps he is simply inconvenient. In any event, Smoak agrees to make his own assessment.

The story reunites Smoak and sixteen-year-old wunderkind Josephine Morales, who has been exploring her boundaries since the end of the last novel. He also gets an assist from Candy McClure. Both Jo and Candy are, like Smoak, former participants in the Orphan program that trained them in the art of killing.

The story features the usual blend of Jo’s computer hacking and Smoak’s exploits as an action hero. The plot becomes a bit deeper than controlled mayhem when Devine makes a credible case that the president has not ordered his assassination with clean hands. How Smoak will process that information sets up the novel’s resolution.

Smoak continues to develop as a character. Smoak alternately enjoys and is irritated by Jo’s teen snark, but she gets under his skin in ways that make him question his life. Smoak is anal and compulsive — traits that probably keep him alive — but his emotional limitations also limit his ability to connect with others. As he confronts the fury that drives his life, he begins to suspect that his hatred of feeling vulnerable is standing in the way of the openness to others that demands vulnerability.

The action scenes are on a par with Reacher and Gray Man novels — making the story fun to read and easy to visualize — but Smoak is developing a stronger personality than most other fictional tough guys. The novels are moving away from their unoriginal foundation — Jason Bourne meets the Equalizer — and are carving out a unique space in the action hero genre. Smoak’s continued evolution as a character makes the series a good choice for action hero fans.

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