Book Review: Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
Moral complexity, emotional Depth, and unexpected politics in this highly entertaining series
Estimated read time is 4 minutes — enjoy!
I’ve been reading Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series for years, always anxiously awaiting the next installment. I just finished the latest, and like its predecessors, it’s just plain entertaining. These books move fast. They’re page-turners in the classic sense—tightly plotted, highly readable, and centered around a character you want to keep following. If you’re looking for a thriller that holds your attention but also offers surprising depth, this series is well worth your time.
The basic premise is somewhat familiar: Evan Smoak is a highly trained assassin, pulled from a rough orphanage as a boy and raised in a covert U.S. government program known only as Orphan. He was taught to kill, to disappear, to complete missions without a trace. But unlike many characters in this genre, Evan’s story isn’t just about following orders or serving patriotic ideals—it’s about moral ambiguity, emotional reckoning, and the search for humanity on your own terms.
After going rogue and vanishing from the Orphan program, Evan becomes the Nowhere Man—an anonymous figure who helps desperate people with no other options. He takes on only the truly vulnerable and targets only those he deems truly evil. His “clients” repay him not with money, but by referring someone else in need. He doesn’t work for governments or for pay. His interventions are pro bono, high-stakes, and always violent. Which raises an uncomfortable question: are we okay with someone acting as judge, jury, and executioner—even if he seems to have a conscience?
What makes this series stand out—especially compared to something like the Jack Reacher books—is that Evan doesn’t just live off-grid and drift from town to town. He resides in a high-end penthouse in Los Angeles and is (awkwardly, hilariously) part of a condo association. The supporting characters in his building are drawn with warmth and absurdity—an old woman with a tiny dog, a free-spirited divorcée trying to rebuild her life, a kind neighbor whose young son idolizes Evan. These relationships serve as a kind of emotional re-education for a man expected to stay disconnected from others, and they add real depth and texture to the books.
One of my favorite characters is Joey, a teenage girl who was herself a failed Orphan. She’s brilliant, impulsive, wildly capable, and emotionally underdeveloped in all the ways you’d expect of someone trained to be a weapon. Evan becomes her reluctant mentor—part big brother, part bumbling father figure. Their dynamic is messy, funny, moving, and a surprisingly effective way to humanize both of them.
All of that brings me to the latest book, Nemesis. While Evan remains central, this installment elevates a longtime supporting character—Tommy Stojack, his arms supplier—into a temporary co-lead. And unexpectedly, at least for me, the novel becomes a meditation on America’s internal divides. Tommy travels from his home outside Las Vegas to help the son of a fallen comrade—a young man who’s become entangled with a ragtag white nationalist militia. What follows isn’t a cartoonish showdown but a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of race, immigration, masculinity, patriotism, and radicalization.
Tommy isn’t liberal. He’s a gruff, Second-Amendment-loving, live-and-let-live kind of guy. But through his eyes, Hurwitz gives us a nuanced picture of how American boys—especially white, working-class boys—are falling through the cracks. These are kids who struggle in school, flounder in low-wage jobs, spiral into addiction, and turn to online extremism not because they are born bigots, but because they feel left behind. Hurwitz doesn’t hammer this home with policy prescriptions, but it’s all there—an indictment not just of right-wing radicalism, but of a liberal politics that’s grown too focused on cultural performance and meritocracy, ignoring the real, structural abandonment of too many Americans.
I wasn’t expecting this level of political texture in a thriller—or for Tommy to emerge as a rough-edged but quietly progressive hero. But Nemesis delivers—smartly, subtly, and without preaching. It’s a reminder that mass-market fiction can still hold moral weight—and maybe even offer insight into a nation still struggling to understand itself.
COMING NEXT MONDAY: America’s Water Advantage — from unmatched navigable rivers to deep-water ports and fertile, well-watered farmland, we’ll explore how geography has always been one of America’s greatest economic assets.