Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Hell Bent is the third in Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series, and it’s the most sensitive and exciting one so far.  Yes, those two adjectives can be in the same sentence, and it’s a mark of the author’s skill that this mystery is simultaneously both thrilling and poignant.

Evan Smoak is the name the novel’s protagonist know him by, but in his professional life he was called Orphan X.  Evan had been taken from a group home when he was twelve and groomed to be a professional assassin embedded down deep in the most secret layers of the Department of Defense.  But Evan went rogue after spending years in the Department, determined to use his unique skill set to help those without other resources to right the wrongs done to them.

He has a special phone number that he always answers, but the call he receives now is the most personal one he has ever received.  It’s from his mentor, Jack Johns the man  who rescued him from the group home, and his answer to Evan’s automatic response to the call–Do you need my help?–is Yes.   Then the line goes dead.  The call starts Evan on a journey to avenge the death of his friend, a journey that will bring him face to face with the man determined to kill him, Charles Van Sciver.

Bu deciphering an elaborate series of coded messages, Evan uncovers Jack’s last request.  It’s stark, with no explanation, just GET PACKAGE followed by an address in Oregon.  And when Evan arrives at the address, nothing is at all what he expected.  Rather, the package is a teenage girl who attacks him and knocks him to the floor.

The girl, Joey, is another of the Orphans trained to be an assassin by Van Sciver.  However, she “washed out,” to use her words, and now she is on his “kill” list.  Now both Evan and Joey are in his sights, and he is drawing ever closer to them.

Like Gregg Hurwitz’s previous two novels featuring Orphan X, Hell Bent is a riveting page turner.  The odds that Evan and Joey are facing are formidable, to understate the situation considerably, all the more so because the reader knows something they don’t.  Although Van Sciver is the head of the group desperately trying to find the two and kill them, he is actually taking orders from someone higher up.  And that person is even more ruthless than he is.

Terrifying and spellbinding are almost insufficient to describe the events in Hell Bent.  The author is taking his readers on a wild and dangerous ride through the underbelly of a United States government agency.  It’s not pretty, but it makes for terrific reading.

You can read more about Gregg Hurwitz at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.