Evan Must Control Himself
While I started out loving the series, I’ve struggled a bit with the recent books in the Orphan X series. Still, I went into Antihero, the most recent, hoping for another good thrill ride. While it was overly dark, I did enjoy it overall.
If you haven’t met him yet, Evan Smoak is Orphan X. As a teen, he was pulled from foster care and trained to be a highly skilled assassin. He left the now defunct program and uses his skills to help those facing overwhelming odds against great evil.
His latest call for help comes from a witness. A woman was taken off a New York City subway by four young men. When Evan manages to find the woman, she’s been horribly violated. Evan immediately goes after the men who did this to her, but she makes him promise not to kill them. Will he be able to keep his promise?
To be clear, these books are thrillers, and they are filled with the things I try to avoid in my reading choices. Usually, they are balanced well with the things I enjoy, but in this case, I felt like we got more details than we needed about the victimized woman’s time in captivity. I think there is a form of this story that cut down those few scenes without ruining the story.
Then again, as Evan struggled with his promise and how to go about getting justice without killing the criminals, I was a bit disturbed about how much of a struggle it was for me not to want to see Evan kill them. Maybe it was those scenes I didn’t like that helped me understand that struggle.
Over the course of the series, Evan’s central struggle is learning to be human again after his training drove all that from him. We get plenty of chances to see that, and it is always welcome. I feel like he made more progress in earlier books. In fact, one subplot ended where I thought those characters already were. Still I enjoyed that aspect again here overall.
There are other series regulars, and they help bring those other sides of Evan out. And they help add some humor to lighten the book. It was nice to see a couple who haven’t been around recently pop up again.
And the mission itself? It kept me engaged and kept the pages turning as I read.
Those who enjoy thrillers more than I do will devour Antihero. Those who are more sensitive, like me, will want to proceed with caution.
Here are the rest of the Orphan X thrillers.
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