Orphan X series rundown

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Taken from a group home at 12, Evan was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets – aka assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the Program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them.

Here is a rundown of Gregg Hurwitz’s novels in the Orphan X series to date.

Orphan X (2016)
It all started in 2016, with a thrilling introduction to Evan Smoak and his complex, twisted life.

As a boy he was taken from an orphanage, then raised and trained. As part of a top-secret programme, he was sent out to do the things his government denied any knowledge of. But someone’s on his trail. Someone who knows his past and believes that the boy once known as Orphan X must die… 

The Nowhere Man (2017)
Ambushed, drugged, and spirited away, Evan wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what's happened, testing his gilded prison and its highly trained guards for weaknesses, he receives a desperate call for help.

Hellbent (2018)
Despite all the dangerous skills he instilled in Evan during his years in a top-secret government program, Jack Jones cared for him like a son. Now, Jack knows too much about the program to be left unchecked – he’s a loose end that needs to be dealt with. But if you go after the only person who ever treated Evan like a human being, you can guarantee Nowhere Man will be coming right back at you. Hellbent on making things right.

Out of the Dark (2019)
The man responsible for the Orphan Program needs all evidence destroyed. That includes Evan. To survive, Evan’s going to have to take the fight to his nemesis. There’s just one problem with that. Jonathan Bennett is President of the United States and Evan isn’t his only victim. To save himself – and the country – he is going to have to figure out how to kill the most well-protected man on the planet.

Into the Fire (2020)
As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from his foster home and inducted into a top secret Cold War programme. Code-named Orphan X, he was trained to become a lethal weapon, then dispatched around the world to do whatever was required to keep his country safe. When Evan discovered the mission was rotten to the core, he got out using his skills to hide in plain sight while helping those who can't help themselves.

Prodigal Son (2021)
Evan Smoak can escape anything. Except his own past. Which is why, even forced into early retirement, he dare not trust the phone call. Nor the caller claiming to be his mother. Asking him to protect a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it stacks up. Yet it bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him. And from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security.