Another crackling caper for the solitary Orphan X.
A maverick assassin squares off against a ruthless AI magnate and a mercenary doppelgänger.
Franchise fans will be pleased to learn that The Last Orphan (2023) wasn’t. “Nowhere Man” Evan Smoak, aka Orphan X, is back for his ninth taut thriller. He comes to consciousness, bloody and broken and barely alive, in a remote part of Texas outside the range of the RoamZone tracker that monitors him. While Evan reestablishes contact with teenage sidekick/protégé Joey and undertakes the goofy but heart-tugging challenge of finding his niece Sofia’s missing dog, Loco, efficient assassin Karissa Lopatina is hard at work, drowning software engineering manager Anwuli Okonkwo in her bathtub, then killing AI expert Dr. Benjamin Hill, whose path happens to have crossed Loco’s. She’s still on the scene when Evan arrives (what are the odds?). Their showdown takes a tragic turn when Hill’s teenage daughter tries to intervene, allowing Karissa to get away and leaving Evan to deal with the police. His narrow escape, combining guile and muscle, is vintage Hurwitz, set forth with gritty edge and puckish humor in short, punchy chapters that include several similar nail-biting scenes. Loco remains at large as Evan’s twisty path takes him to a creepy megalomaniac ironically named Allman and eventually to a face-to-face with Karissa, who, gender aside, could be his identical twin. A handful of characters from previous Orphan X capers return, including Tanner and Devine, who make cameo appearances. Crisp character delineation and a propulsive, forward-moving plot should keep new readers engaged.
Another crackling caper for the solitary Orphan X.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781250871732
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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