The Last Orphan: The Thrilling Orphan X Sunday Times Bestseller (An Orphan X Novel)

Product Information

The Last Orphan is the eighth book in the Orphan X Series and was published by Penguin Michael Joseph in hardcover, audio and digital formats yesterday (that’s Thursday 16th February 2023) with the paperback to follow. I feel like the series needs a reboot, which maybe is what Hurwitz is hinting at with Evan’s unexpected challenges.

Should he kill Luke Divine for the President and his personal freedom even though Divine doesn't fit the usual profile of the "bad guys" he seeks? The choices he makes as the action and thrills build to a climax leads to a series of suspenseful encounters with those he is sworn to protect, those he hunts, and those who hunt him. The motivation for Smoak to do as he’s told is supposedly the promise of a pardon from the President. In this one, X finds himself in sticky situations, but we are starting to see more reliance on others, slight signs of aging, and introspection on relationships.The Last Orphan is so titled because Smoak is the last man standing in a top-secret, off-the-books US programme that raised and trained youngsters and turned them into one-man killing machines. Evan is, of course, very masculine and adept at everything but I was pleased to see a number of strong female characters contributing to his mission.

This novel has very little to do with his life in the batcave and his relationships in his civilian life with Mia and her son, Peter. Eventually he broke free and went deep underground, transforming himself into the Nowhere Man, a way he could use his skills to help people in dire need.The book summary pretty much lays out the first part of the story, that picks up shortly after the last one. Will he follow through for his own self-preservation, or will he adhere to his own personal moral code?

Eventually, the two storylines begin to merge, which puts Evan in a position that he wasn’t trained to do, something that he has only learned recently to do, and it troubles him. I know some much deserved smackdown is about to be served and it puts a smile on my face every time! Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Additionally, he’s written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks.Base elements put through a rigorous process, distilled and filtered until the result was transformed into its purest essence.