Dark Horse
An Orphan X Novel
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4.5 • 1.5K Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
Gregg Hurwitz's New York Times bestselling series returns when Orphan X faces his most challenging mission ever in Dark Horse.
Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the Program, he adopted a new name and a new mission--The Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. Having just survived an attack on his life and the complete devastation of his base of operations, as well as his complicated (and deepening) relationship with his neighbor Mia Hall, Evan isn't interested in taking on a new mission. But one finds him anyway.
Aragon Urrea is a kingpin of a major drug-dealing operation in South Texas. He's also the patron of the local area--supplying employment in legitimate operations, providing help to the helpless, rough justice to the downtrodden, and a future to a people normally with little hope. He's complicated--a not completely good man, who does bad things for often good reasons. However, for all his money and power, he is helpless when one of the most vicious cartels kidnaps his innocent eighteen year old daughter, spiriting her away into the armored complex that is their headquarters in Mexico. With no other way to rescue his daughter, he turns to The Nowhere Man.
Now not only must Evan figure out how to get into the impregnable fortress of a heavily armed, deeply paranoid cartel leader, but he must decide if he should help a very bad man--no matter how just the cause.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It can be dangerous for an assassin to have a heart—and that’s what makes Gregg Hurwitz’s thriller so fascinating. Evan Smoak was known as Orphan X back when he worked as a killer for the government. Now that he’s a freelancer trying to do the right thing, they call him the Nowhere Man. When Texas crime lord Aragon Urrea needs his 18-year-old daughter rescued from the clutches of a rival cartel, that whole “doing the right thing” idea gets pretty complicated. Pairing Evan with the morally complicated Aragon gives Hurwitz a fantastic opportunity to delve into his character’s psyche. That inner struggle (how different is Evan from the crime kingpin, really?) adds a taut emotional underpinning to the hard-driving action. Whether or not you’ve read any of the other books in Hurwitz’s long-running Smoak series, you’ll love this multifaceted action hero: a complicated man for complicated times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
Really good.
A return to form.
Dark Horse
The best one yet!
Well done
Characters were vivid ! Story line was fast-paced. Great job on Dark Horse