Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz
Out of the Dark (Orphan X, #4)
by Gregg Hurwitz (Goodreads Author)
M 50x66
Lou Jacobs's review Oct 22, 2018 · edit
it was amazing

The delightfully dangerous vigilante, Evan Smoak returns for his fourth outing. Not a superhero, but a kind-of Batman .... a highly skilled assassin who offers his services to those innocents who find themselves in impossible situations.
Evan was trained as an assassin by the black ops program - The Orphans. As a 12 year-old boy, he was rescued out of a foster facility in the projects of East Baltimore .... only then to undergo a 7 year grueling training course creating an assassin of unparalleled abilities. At 19 he was sent out on his first mission to eradicate a high-value target of the US government, but as a totally deniable asset .
Fortunately due to the unique training provided by his mentor and "father" Jack Johns he retained his "humanity" and eventually fled the program.
The originator of the program, Jonathan Bennett, has risen to highest seat of power ... and occupies the chair of the President of the United States. Evan Smoak has learned of the Presidents plans to eliminate any trace of the clandestine Orphan Program by killing all the the remaining Orphans. His motivation unknown but naturally unacceptable to the Nowhere Man. Evan must use all of his skills to initiate his own intricate and improbable plan to terminate Bennett ... the most highly protected individual in the whole world.
Gregg Hurvitz supplies another barn burner thriller with a riveting and well plotted narrative with unexpected twists and deceptions of plot. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for supplying this Uncorrected advance reading copy of this roller coaster thriller in exchange for an honest review.

I love this series by Gregg Hurwitz and this book was one of the best in the series. I've read everything the Hurwutz has written and this is my favorite. I'm looking forward, hopefully, to many more books in it.

Another great book by Gregg Hurwitz and the Nowhere Man. A very well written book that follows the Nowhere Man as he tries to assassinate the President before the President is able to kill him while using a former Orphan against him. The reading moves and it is very hard to put down. The secondary story of a young man with a mental illness is being threatened with death after a drug ring murders his family for not looking the other way during an attempt to bring drugs through Customs. As always the Nowhere Man finds creative ways to get the job done while attempting to continue as semi relationship back home with a single mother and her son. A great read that will leave you wanting more. Thank you Gregg Hurwitz, St. Martin's Press and Minotaur Books for the ARC for my honest review.

I am a HUGE fan of Evan Smoak and Orphan X and was thrilled to get my hands on an early copy of this latest edition. When we left off, Evan and the President were facing off in a fight to the death. President Bennett wants to get rid of all evidence of the Orphan Program, including all of the Orphans, with Orphan X at the top of his list. Obviously, this leaves Evan with no choice but to take out the President. In the middle of all that action, the RoamZone rings with someone who desperately needs Evan's help on the other end. Combine all that chaos with the return of another Orphan (I have been waiting so long to see this team in action) and Evan's relationship with Mia and Peter, and you've got an absolutely fantastic read. I could not put this one down and stayed up late into the night to devour one chapter after another. A huge thank you to NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.

Best series ever, and this one is the best yet! The only bad part of this novel is finishing it, and having to wait for the next one. Great adventure, thrilling scenes, still a character you can root for and care about. One of the years bests!

Gregg Hurwitz delivers a blockbuster installment in his Orphan X series. The President has ordered the murder of all the Orphans recruited for the program he created as head of the DOD years ago. If he’s determined to eliminate loose ends, X is happy to accommodate him — by eliminating the biggest loose end of all: he’s going to assassinate the President.

Another amazing Evan Smoak book! I really enjoy this character and hope this series will continue for awhile. I am enjoying the new characters that are popping up too. Please write faster!

This latest in the Orphan X series is the best one so far. The most powerful man in the world wants Evan and the rest of the orphans dead. Evan is determined to end him first. How, when, and who comes out on top is an E ticket ride from start to finish. I can’t recommend this enough to readers of suspense fiction.

The Orphan X/Evan Smoak books just keep getting better and better. I really enjoyed this latest in the series. Evan navigates between helping a frightened mentally challenged young man who's family has been gunned down by a drug lord and working to tie up mysterious Orphan program loose ends in D.C.

Back in the plot are President Jonathan Bennett, whose past deeds with Orphan X during his Dept. of Defense days have Evan in his cross hairs, the elusive Orphan V, Candy McClure, and our favorite teenage hacker, Joey Morales. Again, neighbors Mia and Peter round out the cast of characters to bring a bit of lightness to the tension.

Evan Smoak has become my favorite vigilante anti-hero. From his social awkwardness, love for gourmet vodka and his amazing talent for survival offense tactics, this is one series I look forward to with relish. I spent an entire day devouring this book, resenting all interruptions. Then I was sorry, of course, to see it end.

Orphan X is the best thriller series out there. Evan is one badass man and I love the straight forward way he takes care of the bad guys. With a great supporting cast, I never fail to enjoy his non stop rollercoaster assignments. He is a good guy., no doubt about it. Kudos to Gregg Hurwitz for another amazing chapter in this ongoing saga.

great book full of suspense and action would recommend to all thriller reader and other readers could be a movie or tv serie love it

Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X novels are some of my favorite books. Out of the Dark is no exception. Evan Smoak or also known as Orphan X has a complicated personality. He was trained to use violence and action to kill people when ordered to by Jack his "father" figure. Jack rescued him from an orphanage "and taught him to kill for the US government, As a result he easily used violence when working with Jack and as part of the governments Orphan Program. However when the program closes he creates his own program to use all the skills he's learned. He tries to help people who need it He cares about others but is unable to find any personal happiness or satisfaction outside of his life. The Orphan X novels are some of my favorite books and I hope Gregg Hurwitz writes more. Maybe Evan can find some way to have close relationships with others.

Book four in this page turning series ,action packed a true page turner..Once again I was kept on the edge of my seat.I recommend this series to anyone who is looking for an intelligent exciting well written series,

Out of the Dark is the fourth book in The Orphan X thriller series which features a Jason Bourne type invincible secret agent trained from childhood to be the perfect weapon. Orphan X left the fold, went out on his own, and pays it forward by helping people who call his special phone number. He has a sort of secret identity and a high tech condo like Bruce Wayne’s bat cave. He is also haunted by his past and by the efforts of some to erase all evidence that the Orphan program ever existed. He is part of that evidence.

This is a solid action packed thriller, just not quite the compelling read the other books in the series were. By about the midpoint, this reader was no longer invested in the outcome. It felt very much like a standard story line found in many thrillers.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review

Orphan X is back! The fourth book in the series finds Evan Smoak in Washington going after enemies in the highest of places, all while making time to help the next desperate caller in his role as the Equalizer-esque Nowhere Man. Favorite supporting characters from the previous installments make appearances throughout, and an unlikely alliance is formed with a past enemy. It feels slightly silly to admit that I was even happy to see Vera (II) again. The usual over-the-top ingredients are present: extravagant vodkas (I googled the fog one to find out if it was a joke at the expense of hipsters), ultra-specialized equipment, expert hand-to-hand combat, and surprising weapons (including a variety of ninja-like uses for a backpack). The pace is fast but slows down just enough to allow glimpses of Evan’s softer side in his unwillingness to harm innocents and relationships with computer whiz Joey, neighbor Mia, and her son, Peter. Secret Service agent Naomi Templeton’s character is particularly well-drawn, with her family and work conflicts all shown to good effect. There are some appealing turns of phrase, and the dialogue is well done.

Basically, you absorb this story with its exploits and gadgets as you would a James Bond, Mission Impossible, or Batman movie; the technological details seem realistic enough to be scary and fascinating, and you don’t spend too much time dwelling on how true they are or whether you would really want a guy to be doing these terrible, vigilante-type things in real life. How could you not take to a hero who describes his attack/escape combination to his opponents in advance as if he were calling a complex pool shot, then executes it exactly as described despite having warned them? The whole time you are reading, you are engaging in a mental casting call for who should star in the movie that is crying out be made from these books.

I look forward to giving this book as a gift and to buying the hardcover for my shelf.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance digital copy of this book for review.

Technical note for reviewers: the ARC does work on kindle, but it appears on the device under a different title. Please check again before leaving a bad rating based on technical problems having nothing to do with the author or the content of the book.

Oh boy, do I ache all over.

Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for this arc. I loved it!.
(Note for Judy D., previous reviewer -- this is not a kindle doc file but an E-pub file.... you'll need Adobe Digital reader installed on your computer to read and it's really not nice to rate a book you haven't read a one star).

So I couldn't get all comfortable on a nice piece of upholstered furniture.... I had to read this on my computer instead of my kindle. Didn't matter, I love the Orphan X books and I couldn't wait until January to read it. This is the 4th book in the series and while it can be read as a stand-alone, the previous books introduce the recurring characters (several) and should be read so as to fully understand Evan's heart.

The pacing and action were pretty much non-stop in this book as expected. There were also enough technical details (weaponry, computer hacking stuff, vodka distilled from fog) that I was able to continue breathing during the six hours it took me to read this. Were those details accurate?? Were they even plausible? I don't know and I didn't care. They were part of the story and the fun. The hide and seek/hunt and chase game was played on 2 different fronts in this book. One front was personal for Evan and it was interesting to watch the moral conflicts that one raised for him. His role in the other game was as his "No where Man" persona and had a bit more heart to it. But then his was fighting for Trevor instead of himself.

It was also good to see Joey again and hope to see more of her in future books. The "Uncle Cousin" role she put Evan into was fun to imagine.


I am NOT cancelling my kindle pre-order of Out of the Dark so that the next time I want to read this, I can be a lot more comfortable on a nice piece of upholstered furniture and I won't have to re-set the font on the screen every time another e-mail comes in.