Prodigal Son

In bestseller Hurwitz’s engrossing sixth Orphan X novel (after 2020’s Into the Fire), former black ops assassin turned crime-fighting vigilante Evan Smoak is lured out of retirement by an unlikely individual: his mother. Given up when he was a newborn—and eventually recruited into the top-secret Orphan Program, where he was trained to be a government operative—Smoak is initially skeptical about his mother’s sudden appearance. But the man she asks him to help turns out to be Andre, a kid he knew from childhood when they lived in a Baltimore group home. After witnessing a murder while working at an impound lot, Andre has disappeared, and Smoak soon becomes entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy involving cutting edge military technology. The pacing is breathtakingly brisk throughout, and the action is relentless, but the real hook is how much Smoak has matured emotionally, particularly in regard to his love interest Mia Hall, a district attorney who lives in Smoak’s building, and Joey, his 16-year-old hacker protégée. This series continues to impress. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary. (Jan.)