5 Star Review LONE WOLF by Gregg Huritz

 

 Once a black book government assassin known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak left the program, went deep underground, and reinvented himself as someone who will go anywhere, and risk everything to help the truly desperate who have nowhere else to turn. Since then, Evan has fought international crime syndicates and drug cartels, faced down the most powerful men in the world and even brought down a President. Struggling with an unexpected personal crisis, Evan goes back to the very basics of his mission - and this time, the truly desperate is a little girl who wants him to find her missing dog.

Not his usual mission, and not one Evan embraces with enthusiasm, but this unlikely, tiny job quickly explodes into his biggest mission yet. one that finds him battered between twisted AI technocrat billionaires, a mysterious female assassin who seems a mirror of himself, and personal stakes so gut-wrenching he can scarcely make sense of them .

Evan's mission pushes him to his limit - he must find and take down the assassin known only as the Wolf, before she succeeds in completing her mission and killing the people who can identify her - a teenaged daughter of her last target, and Evan himself. Matched skill for skill, instinct for instinct, Evan must outwit an opponent who will literally stop at nothing if he is to survive.

 

Lone Wolf is my favorite book in the series so far.  There are a lot of scenes that give me a wide range of feelings from beginning to end. 

First, In the past, we get glimpses into Evan Smoak’s heart and humanity but not too much of his personal history.  He is, first and foremost, a former Orphan who was groomed to be a heartless assassin.  In this book, X has much to deal with in his personal life and his mission.

I love that the mission starts with a request from a young girl to find a dog. X didn’t want the job, but he was moved by the young girl.  He tracked the dog to a townhouse and found a murdered AI guru. The discovery started another mission that often collides with the original dog search.  He deals with the personal pain of his clients.

I love Joey. She made me laugh throughout the book. She rubs X's OCD to a fever pitch. X is working through a lot of personal stuff that forces him to deal with more personal “stuff,” even with Tommy. Also, I loved the unexpected personal liaison.  I'm still hopeful about his previous paramour, but I understand his decisions. 

The paid assassin is a good match for X. There are high-tension situations that had me on the edge of my seat. I often thought about many of the AI / Social network issues discussed with the AI bigwigs. It is scary because of how realistic it could be.

All the above worked together perfectly.  In addition, there were good tears at the end. And that epilogue. I don't know what that means for the next book, but whatever it is --I loved it all.

The narrator, Scott Brick, is excellent.  He has worked his magic from the first book in the series.  I love his interpretation of the characters and the situations they find themselves in.  Brick pulls the perfect emotion from me depending on the scene and character.  I laughed out loud with Joey and the residents of Evan’s condo.  Tommy gave me a sad laugh, more at Evan than Tommy. I cry when there are tragic situations, and he moves me to a level of anxiety that I didn’t expect. 

 I can’t wait to see what happens next.