Book Chat’s rating: ∗∗*/5
This book received multiple 5-star reviews and I was so looking forward to read it. Gregg Hurwitz has an impressive resume being the writer Wolverine for Marvel and Batman for DC Comics. But I must have been reading a different book to the other 5-star reviewer. For the most part it didn’t click with me. Although there was some exciting fighting scenes, the overall plot was too basic to be impressive. It seems like you’ve heard the story somewhere before. At times, I wonder if I’m reading advertisements for (Verizon?) LTE network, iPhone, and kombucha tea!! If you read this, try counting how many times Hurwitz described kombucha tea, maybe this is a secret way to show the healthy living style of our hero – Evan Smoak.
Evan Smoak is a likeable hero. He’s skillful, resourceful and have a personal mission to help the innocent. He was trained in the Orphan intelligent organization, and was named Orphan X. You guessed it, there are Orphan A B C… and when they run out of letters, sure, they can use numbers. But the point is there aren’t many people like him. He’s leaving the organization, but the organization does not want to let him go. Evan wanted to help some girls that fell prey to a corrupted police, but turned out, a small job becomes a big job that follows him till the end of the book. And you heard it, it resembles Jack Reacher, Harlan Coben,… all true. That’s exactly how the story went, but I don’t want to compare writing styles because I’m not into Reacher either. But I did watch the movie Jack Reacher though and Tom Cruise as Evan Smoak definitely came into my mind when I was trying to imagine the book. I think it would definitely make a good movie, but not sure if I will read another Evan Smoak series, maybe another Gregg Hurwitz.