Another entertaining action thriller: bring on num

Into The Fire is the fifth book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. With perhaps the idea of having something like a normal life, Evan Smoak vows that whomever Trevon Gaines sends him, it will be his last Nowhere Man mission.

When forensic accountant, Grant Merriwether is murdered, his cousin Max quickly realises that the “in the event of my death” envelope Grant gave him is going to spell trouble. Max narrowly escapes walking in on a thug ransacking his apartment, and the LA Times journalist to whom he was meant to take Grant’s letter has been brutally slain. Desperate, Max clutches the straw he has been offered: the Nowhere Man’s number.

Evan is, as always, efficient and dispenses with the threat quick smart. So why is someone still shooting at him and making threatening phone calls? Is there another tier to this mission? He needs to get this sorted so Max (and Evan?) can start living a normal life. Although if a normal life involves Home Owners Association meetings, he might have second thoughts: “A familiar feeling of unease resurfaced, that Evan was a traveler in a foreign land, observing native customs and rituals without understanding their purpose. Being concussed didn’t exactly clarify matters.”

In this instalment, Evan: inflicts a designer wound to facilitate tracking; gets into a dog fight; has a bedroom magnet mishap; rescues a puppy; provides a form of crudités to a meeting; mugs a mugger; goes to jail, and escapes, and does much of it while suffering concussion. It’s no surprise to readers of Out Of The Dark that Trevon Gaines makes a reappearance, and Joey Morales’s participation is virtually a given.

As always, it’s a good idea to suspend disbelief when reading this series, or you’ll start thinking that it’s as well Evan Smoak doesn’t have a paying job because when would he get time to maintain all his safe houses and vehicles, and who cleans his house? Washing clothing and cleaning shoes seems to be a moot point as they end up in the fireplace, replaced by an endless supply of identical new items. Another entertaining action thriller: bring on number six!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and St Martin’s Press