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Article  •  15 February 2025

 

A series guide to Orphan X

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. If you're searching for your next thriller obsession, and you haven't checked out the Orphan X series, read on!

“Brilliantly conceived and plotted … Read this book. You’ll thank me later.”David Baldacci

“Excellent…A smart, stylish, state-of-the-art thriller…might give Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books a run for their money.”—The Washington Post

Orphan X Gregg Hurwitz

It all started in 2016, with a thrilling introduction to Evan Smoak and his complex, twisted life. As a boy, Evan was taken from an orphanage, then raised and trained as an 'Orphan'- the perfect deniable intelligence asset. As Orphan X, he was sent out to do the things his government denied any knowledge of, until he used everything he'd learned to disappear. But now someone’s on his trail. Someone who knows his past and believes that the boy once known as Orphan X must die… 

 

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The Nowhere Man Gregg Hurwitz

Ambushed, drugged, and spirited away, Evan wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what's happened, testing his gilded prison and its highly trained guards for weaknesses, he receives a desperate call for help.

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Hellbent Gregg Hurwitz

Despite all the dangerous skills he instilled in Evan during his years in a top-secret government program, Jack Jones cared for him like a son. Now, Jack knows too much about the program to be left unchecked – he’s a loose end that needs to be dealt with. But if you go after the only person who ever treated Evan like a human being, you can guarantee he'll be coming for you, Hellbent on making things right.

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Out of the Dark Gregg Hurwitz

The man responsible for the Orphan Program needs all evidence destroyed. That includes Evan. To survive, Evan’s going to have to take the fight to his nemesis. There’s just one problem with that. Jonathan Bennett is President of the United States and Evan isn’t his only victim. To save himself – and the country – he is going to have to figure out how to kill the most well-protected man on the planet.

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Into the Fire Gregg Hurwitz

Evan Smoak is ready to hang up his gun when he gets one last call. A man who was left a mysterious package by his murdered cousin, now has an assassin on his trail. Easy work for Evan. Except behind the assassin is someone worse. And behind them something darker still. How long can Evan keep standing? How many times can a man step into the fire?

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Prodigal Son Gregg Hurwitz

Evan Smoak can escape anything except his own past. Which is why he can't completely trust the phone call he receives from a woman claiming to be his mother. None of it stacks up. Yet her story bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him. And from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security.

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Dark Horse Gregg Hurwitz

Evan broke free from the Orphan programme to use his skills to help the good but powerless. But what if the person asking for help is neither? When the daughter of a Texan crime boss is kidnapped by a ruthless drugs cartel, he asks Evan to rescue her. The girl is innocent of her father's crimes. But in taking the case is Evan crossing a line? 

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The Last Orphan Gregg Hurwitz

The last survivor of the off-the-books programme that raised and trained him, Evan Smoak was sent around the world to do his government's dirty work. Until he escaped. Now once again in need of his particular skill-set, the President tracks him down and offers him a deal: kill a man she deems too dangerous or be executed himself. Trouble is, putting Orphan X in an impossible spot only makes him more dangerous . . .

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Lone Wolf Gregg Hurwitz

As he struggles with an unexpected personal crisis, Evan decides to go right back basics; helping a little girl who wants him to find her missing dog. Not his usual mission, and not one Evan embraces with enthusiasm, but this unlikely, tiny job somehow explodes into his biggest mission yet, one that finds him battered between twisted AI technocrat billionaires, a mysterious female assassin who seems a mirror of himself, and personal stakes so gut-wrenching he can scarcely make sense of them. 

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Nemesis Gregg Hurwitz

No greater friend, no worse enemy.

Evan Smoak is someone you want on your side. As a former government black ops assassin, he’ll be there in your darkest hour to rain hell and thunder on those who caused you pain. But his history means that Evan is a lone wolf – and he can’t afford to lose any of the few people he likes and trusts.

When his longtime gunsmith and armourer betrays him, it’s war. Because a good assassin keeps friends close and his weapons closer.

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