Book Review: Nemesis by Gregg Hurwitz (Orphan X #10)

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Writing is excellent as always

Cons: Murky message, few thrills, conversation could have resolved most of the plot

The Bottom Line:

Face off with a friend

Unusually messy

Even fans can skip

Orphan Versus Friend

I’m realizing I’m reading more and more non-cozy mysteries these days.  But one non-cozy author I’ve been reading the longest is Gregg Hurwitz.  I started when he was doing standalones before he came up with his Orphan X series.  Nemesis is the tenth book in that series, and I was hoping for another great thrill ride.  Sadly, it was very disappointing.

As in introduction if you haven’t started the series yet, it features Evan Smoak.  He was chosen as a teen and trained to become a highly skilled assassin for the US government.  After years of crossing the globe to take on these highly secretive operations, he removed himself from the program, hiding out and fulfilling missions for those who have no other hope.  But he still lives by the strict moral code his trainer instilled in him as he tries to find a way to be a man despite all his training to kill.

Which brings us to this book.  One of the few friends that Evan has made in his life after leaving the Orphan program is Tommy Stojack.  Tommy also happens to be his supplier of weapons, and he’s very good at his job.  So Evan is naturally very upset when he realizes that the assassin he was facing in the previous book was using weapons supplied by Tommy.  Since this is violating one of the rules Evan lives by, he knows he must confront his friend.  Which might turn deadly.

Especially after their first meeting doesn’t go as planned.  But things quickly get complicated when Tommy leaves town to help the son of a navy friend and Evan is ambushed by a group of assassins.  Will the two be able to resolve their differences peacefully?  Or are they destined to have a fight to the death?

So why doesn’t this book work?  There are many reasons, unfortunately.

Let’s start with the fact that this book is a slog, especially for a thriller.  I feel like much of the middle of the book is filler.  Yes, we get a few interesting scenes and a couple of twists, but they could have been condensed into far fewer pages.

Not to mention the fact that a couple of good conversations between characters would have resolved much of the conflict.  And I can see no reason why they didn’t sit down and have those conversations.

Then, there’s the fact that Tommy is an arms dealer.  The way Evan jumped to thinking his friend was evil based on Evan’s code of ethics was a head scratcher to me.  First, why would Tommy have to abide by this code.  Second, how could Tommy vet all his clients?  And that’s just for starters.

Not to mention the fact that Evan is pretty evil at times in this book as well.  He thinks he is following his code of conduct, but he isn’t, and it’s frustrating to watch.  I get the character development we were supposed to be seeing, but it just didn’t work for me.  There were other ways for the situation to be resolved.

Or maybe that was because we were getting this book equally from Tommy’s point of view.  It’s not the first time the third person point of view has included people other than Evan, but it’s the first time it was so much of the book.  That gave us a different perspective on things and made us view Evan’s actions differently.

Tommy leaving town leads us to a story within a story that takes a lot of page time.  Unfortunately.  A ripped from the headlines story that involved politics and cliches.  Tons of them.  And the attempts to develop the characters involved in that story just make the cliches worse, which was just more annoying and made me less invested.  By the end, the political point was very muddy.  It’s not that we get something to think about.  It’s that what we get makes little sense, especially considering a subplot that another character has.  Instead of thinking about something, we’re left wondering what the point was.

All of this leads us to a climax that I found unsatisfying.

This series contains some of the most graphic violence I read.  I feel like it is getting worse in each book, although maybe I’ve just forgotten how violent the early books in the series were.  Either way, I normally can overlook that because of the fun of the story.  Obviously, here, that bothered me as well.

I will give the book this.  Gregg Hurwitz is a talented wordsmith, and he continues with that here.  But it wasn’t enough to save the book.

The series has felt adrift to me for a few books now.  Evan had a clear mission in the early books, but since that arc ended, I’ve been wondering exactly where the series is going.  This book might be the result of the lack of a clear plan.

Honestly, this book was so disappointing I’m debating about continuing with the series.  Lots of others seemed to enjoy Nemesis.  But I would only recommend this one for fans of the series, and even then, reluctantly.

Do check out other books in the Orphan X series.