If you love Lee Child's Jack Reacher, and I do, then you will love Orphan X. Orphan X is sort of like the scary child of Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne. And it is "The most exciting thriller since the Bourne Identity." says Robert Crais, another fabulous writer.
The premise is that some deep, dark U.S. agency has been scooping up orphans that were growing up under awful circumstances and training them to be killers. They are given lessons in multiple forms of combat and spy craft. The story of how they train them to ignore pain is hard to read. Each Orphan is given a letter for a code name. They are raised and trained by a handler and then given tasks, generally assassinations, to handle when they are deemed ready.
At one point Orphan X, known as Evan Smoak, balks at an assignment and then HE is targeted for assassination. Thanks to the training he has received, he is able to avoid being killed and sets out to use the skills he has learned to protect those unable to protect themselves. Unlike Jack Reacher, who finds trouble by accident when traveling the country, Evan actively seeks it out. After rescuing total strangers, Evan gives them a number to call and they are asked to give it out to ONE other person that may need his services. That is how they repay Orphan X.
He may go months between his self-appointed tasks and he uses this time to keep up his skills. He has many safe houses, cars and weapons, one of which is using computers to verify that he is truly needed and that it is a job that he feels is worth doing.
But the agency (whatever that is) has still targeted him and they are closing in on his assassination.
This is a fast paced story and really good. It has already been optioned for a movie and Hurwitz has written the screenplay. This is one movie I want to watch.
Unless they cast Tom Cruise, like they did for the Jack Reacher character. Then I will pass.
But I WILL read the next book. Because there is another one called The Nowhere Man, but it won't be released until next year.
I can't wait!
Thanks for the heads up on this author, Rebecca. This summer I am reading my way theough James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series, although not all i. Sequence.
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