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Audiobook details
The assassin who answers the call no one else will
Evan Smoak exists off the grid. No records, no identity, no past that anyone can trace. As a boy, he was pulled from a government program called Orphan X and trained to become one of the most lethal operatives in the world. When that chapter ended, he walked away and built a new life, operating in the shadows under a single alias: the Nowhere Man. He takes calls from people who have nowhere else to turn, and he solves their problems with a precision that leaves no loose ends.
Then a dying man reaches out. The job is different this time, the stakes are personal, and someone is already hunting Evan down. That someone has access to the same classified files, the same training methods, the same ruthless logic. The chase that follows moves fast, across cities and across memories Evan has spent years trying to bury.
Gregg Hurwitz constructs a thriller built on discipline and restraint rather than spectacle. Evan is not invincible. He is methodical, isolated, and shaped by a childhood stolen from him by the state. The tension in this book comes less from the action than from the question underneath it: what does a man owe to a world that turned him into a weapon?
I picked this up knowing nothing about Gregg Hurwitz, and I finished it in two days. Not because the plot is relentless, though it is, but because Evan Smoak is one of the most interesting protagonists I have encountered in the thriller genre in a long time.
The setup is clean: a former black-ops assassin, trained as a child by a covert government program called Orphan X, who now operates in secret helping ordinary people in desperate situations. He calls himself the Nowhere Man. That premise could easily tip into comic-book territory, but Hurwitz keeps it grounded. Evan has rules, a strict personal code, and an almost monastic discipline that shapes every decision he makes. The author uses that discipline as a narrative device, and it works.
What surprised me was the emotional texture underneath the action. Evan's backstory, how he was recruited as a boy, the man who raised and trained him, the isolation of his adult life, is delivered carefully, without sentiment. You understand why he is the way he is without ever feeling like you are being manipulated into sympathy. That restraint is the book's real strength.
The antagonist is well-constructed too, a mirror of sorts to Evan, which gives the conflict more weight than a standard cat-and-mouse structure would allow. The pacing accelerates in the second half without losing coherence, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. A few supporting characters feel slightly underwritten, but it doesn't slow things down in any meaningful way.
Scott Brick's narration is exactly right for this material. His voice is measured, controlled, and carries a quiet authority that matches Evan's character precisely. He doesn't dramatize when the prose doesn't call for it. At 13 hours and 13 minutes, the audiobook never drags because Brick treats the text with the same seriousness Hurwitz put into writing it. It's one of those pairings where narrator and material feel genuinely matched.
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Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz opens a series built around one of the more compelling figures in recent thriller fiction. Evan Smoak was taken from a group home as a boy and fed into a classified government program designed to produce untraceable killers. He survived it, walked away from it, and rebuilt his life around a private code he calls the Commandments. Now he operates as the Nowhere Man, a fixer of last resort for people who have run out of options.
Take advantage of the free trial, cancellable at any time, and hear Scott Brick bring Evan Smoak to life across 13 hours and 13 minutes of tightly constructed listening. Brick's delivery is steady and controlled throughout, matching the character's precision with a narration that never overplays its hand.
The audiobook is yours to keep even after the trial ends. The free trial also opens access to thousands of other titles, with no obligation to continue. Start listening now.
US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.
