Reviewed: 17 January 2025

Nemesis

by: Gregg Hurwitz

An Orphan X Novel - Book 10

Rating: (5/5)

No person or situation is 100% good or bad

Evan/Orphan X has been taught a code to be an assassin. His former handler also tried to maintain his humanity. This story puts that to the test both with his relationship with Joey and his relationship with Tommy. It also challenges him as The Nowhere Man and the code he follows in that persona.

Throughout we are given flashbacks to Evan's origins to understand how he formed His thoughts, his beliefs, his purpose, his method of being in order appreciate how he is grappling with how to go against the codes he has been taught and ramifications.

Add to this, Evan's care of 17 year old Joey who is struggling to fit in at college, navigate the harrowing world of social media, and figure out who she wants to be now that she is no longer in the orphan program. She has to compartmentalize her "job" of watching Evan's six, her feelings about him going after Tommy, and college. Evan who doesn't have the highest emotional intelligence steps up in his way to help. Joey seeks help from the only female she can trust, Orphan V who has also left the program. The conversation is poignant and helps Joey find a way forward. I think it’s fair to say that both orphan and Joey grew up a bit in the story. They learned some heart lessons and I think they’re better for them.

There is a lot of "doing what's right even when it's hard" running through this story. Tommy has a lot good dialogue both in his conversations with Evan and the boys. In many ways we were shown that people as well as situations were not always good/bad, black/white, there was grey in the middle. It was about how we navigate through the greyness that speak to who we are.

This story provided many thought-provoking moments about the 2024/2025 world and how situations are created and handled. With the voice an older, non-minority, ex-soldier who is no saint providing them.

Janis and the Four Horseman, scary and symbolic antagonists that provide another layer of depth to story while literally scaring the crap out of me.

Ending this with the Frederick Douglass quote Tommy used about the importance developing and educating young people to avoid societal issues later, which may have prevented the chain of events that brought him to the small town in the first place. Again...thought-provoking

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” - Frederick Douglass

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MinotaurBooks for the opportunity to do an early read and share my thoughts on the story.

Happy Reading!

Release Date: 11-February-2025

Audiobook, NetGalley, Mystery, Thriller, Action

Plot Summary

In the latest explosive novel in this New York Times bestselling series, Evan Smoak, having shaped his life with a rigid set of rules, finds himself at odds with his oldest friend in the world, where principles are in conflict with honor―and everyone is the loser.

At one time Evan Smoak was a highly successful black ops assassin known as Orphan X, dedicated to a rigid set of operational rules. Now, even after breaking with the government program, going deep underground, and remaking his life, Smoak is dedicated to his assassin's Ten Commandments. But for the first time in his life, those principles have put him on a collision course with the man who might be his best friend in the world, Tommy Stojack.

Stojack, a gifted gunsmith who has created much of Evan's own weapons and combat gear, has apparently crossed one of Evan's sharply delineated lines. When Evan decides to go to his workshop and have it out with Tommy, Evan finds himself under attack by a group attempting to ambush and kill him. But, with all his training and skills, Evan is extremely hard to kill―and the dispute explodes into open warfare between him and Tommy. Now Evan has no choice, in his mind, than to track down and face down his only friend.

In the meantime, Tommy is honoring an old promise to an Army friend and goes to help his dead friend's son. In a depressed rural area, with conflicts flaring up, that son is partially responsible for the death of an innocent. And while Tommy is trying to keep him, and his friends, alive, Evan arrives, with vengeance in mind.

The scary thing? Evan isn't even the most dangerous threat to arrive on the scene.