The Nowhere Man by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz

The Nowhere Man

by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz

Spoken about only in whispers, it is said that when the Nowhere Man is reached by the truly desperate, he can and will do anything to save them. Evan Smoak is the Nowhere Man. Taken from a group home at twelve, Evan was raised and trained as part of the Orphan program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets -- i.e. assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man. But the new head of the Orphan program hasn't forgotten about him and is using all of his assets -- including the remaining Orphans -- to track down and eliminate Smoak. But this time, the attack comes from a different angle and Evan is caught unaware. Captured, drugged, and spirited off to a remote location, heavily guarded from all approaches. They think they have him trapped and helpless in a virtual cage but they don't know who they're dealing with -- that they've trapped themselves inside that cage with one of the deadliest and most resourceful Orphans.

Reviewed by jesstheaudiobookworm on

3 of 5 stars

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3.75★⎮As much as I loved the first installment of the series, the second installment fell victim to the sophomore slump. It wasn't terrible, by any stretch of the imagination. If it hadn't followed such a stellar debut, I probably would have liked it a lot more.

I listened to The Nowhere Man immediately after finishing Orphan X, so the two sort of flowed into one. This unintentional uniformity emphasized to the contrast between the two installments. The first major difference is the setting. Orphan X takes place mostly in California, but Evan moves around within it a lot. In The Nowhere Man, Evan is captured and imprisoned fairly soon into the start of the book. After that, the rest of the book takes place while he is in captivity.

To be honest, that was the main downer for me in this installment. Who would want to watch a movie where Batman is imprisoned the whole time? No. You want to see him out doing his thing. I don't have a problem with him Evan being captured, per se. It was a nice change of pace, for a while. The problem was that his imprisonment lasted too long. It wasn't just something that happened to him in the story, it was the story. It was intriguing at first, but it got old really quickly.

This installment introduced some new POV characters and did a great job of setting up a conflict that would arc throughout the next two installments. Hurwitz pulls a bait and switch with his villains. The main antagonist in this installment isn't the real threat. Instead, it's the one lurking in the background that should be focused on. Evan knows this, but still has to deal with what's right in front of him first.

What I'm describing here is the definition of a "bridge book". There's an episodic plot happening, but the more important plot is being set up for the next few books. Because of that, this installment isn't really something you can skip. If you did, you would miss a lot of background information regarding the Orphan program, as well as the development of the next "big baddie".

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 3 May, 2019: Finished reading
  • 3 May, 2019: Reviewed