Audio Book Review: Out of the Dark: an Orphan X novel by Gregg Hurwitz

Release Date: January 29, 2019
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Format: Audio
Length: 12 hours 49 minutes
Narrator: Scott Brick
Genre:Thriller/suspense
Buy: Audible | Kindle | Paperback

Synopsis: 

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the Program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man, a man who helps the truly desperate when no one else can. But now Evan's past is catching up to him.

Someone at the very highest level of government has been trying to eliminate every trace of the Orphan Program by killing all the remaining Orphans and their trainers. After Evan's mentor and the only father he ever knew was killed, he decided to strike back. His target is the man who started the Program and who is now the most heavily guarded person in the world: the President of the United States.

But President Bennett knows that Orphan X is after him and, using weapons of his own, he's decided to counter-attack. Bennett activates the one man who has the skills and experience to track down and take out Orphan X—the first recruit of the Program, Orphan A.

With Evan devoting all his skills, resources, and intelligence to find a way through the layers of security that surround the President, suddenly he also has to protect himself against the deadliest of opponents. It's Orphan vs. Orphan with the future of the country—even the world—on the line.

Review:

I got hooked on these books through Netgalley and when I saw there was a new one I had to grab it. This time I chose an audio book because I wanted to see if I felt any different about the characters between reading them and listening to them and I did not.  The narrator was terrific, really captured Evan well.  Of course taking on the President of the United States is not the easiest of tasks but Orphan X is the best and of course he couldn't just focus on that job he had to help a young autistic boy who finds himself in trouble. I actually really like the interaction between Evan and the young man he chooses to help as the Nowhere Man, due to Evan's upbringing he is very much autistic in his interactions.  He doesn't understand the nuances of social interaction or of friends but he tries and its sweet and terrifying to see his attempts.  I was really glad to see the return of the young hacker Evan helped save in the last book and hope that we see more of her in the future.  She breaks through Evan's barriers and reminds him to be human and so does his relationship with his neighbor and her son but that has its own set of problems.