DARK HORSE

5 stars out of 5

Wow. Just wow. Love this series, loved this book (the 7th, for the record). I made the mistake of starting it early one afternoon, so the need to eat and sleep forced me to put it down once or twice instead of polishing it off in one day as would have been my choice. But trust me, I closed my Kindle with great reluctance.

To say that Evan Smoak, the star of the show, is carrying a ton of baggage from his past doesn't even come close to an accurate description. Suffice it to say that he survived his younger days as a highly trained assassin in the U.S. government's clandestine Orphan Program and has come out on the other side. Whether that's for better or worse depends on the situation, but now he's dropped his Orphan X identity and is known as The Nowhere Man - someone whose mission in life is to help people who have no one else to turn to. 

Now in the process of restoring his high-tech condo digs after a blast that almost killed him, he's sort of settled into a relationship of sorts with his neighbor Mia Hall. His young tech buddy (and former Orphan survivor) Joey Morales is helping with the restoration, and Evan really wants a break. Alas, he won't get one; duty calls after a call from drug-dealer hotshot Aragon Urrea in South Texas. Evan has no interest in helping bad guys, but Aragon has a softer side; just like Evan, he helps many people less fortunate than himself. More to the point of the story, his beloved only daughter, Angelina, has been kidnapped by a rival cartel and taken to their headquarters compound in Mexico. Evan isn't thrilled with helping someone who most folks would consider one of the bad guys, but after meeting Aragon, he concludes that good and bad don't always show up in black and white - and in this instance, gray is an acceptable color.

From that point on, it's basically a story of how one man can rescue a damsel in distress without getting himself killed. In this instance, it ain't easy; Evan will need all the tricks of the trade he can muster (or get from friends) plus an abundance of intestinal fortitude. I'd throw in a modicum of luck, but I'm pretty sure Evan wouldn't buy that for one second; as the saying goes, luck happens only when preparedness meets opportunity. It's page after page of action - much of it on the horrific side - with close call after close call. If that weren't enough, a situation back at home takes a potentially deadly turn that turns out to be the cliffhanger at the end of the book (making me, of course, eager to get my hands on the next installment).

All in all, this is a series I highly recommend (if you can start at the beginning, so much the better, but I'm one who did not and had no difficulty figuring out what was going on in those I did read including this one). Many thanks once again to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy. Super good!

Dark Horse by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur Books, February 2022); 432 pp.