It’s as good as any he’s written so far, and if you haven’t come across his Orphan (alias Evan Smoak) yet, don’t worry – like all the books in the series, it’s a stand-alone thriller. Additionally, he’s written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks.

During second half of the book, he enlists Tommy, the wheelchair bound armorer, Orphan V Candy McClure who in the last several books has had a sole mission to hunt down and kill Evam Smoke Orphan X because he caused her to become badly burned while he was trying to escape from her and the other renegade Orphans.Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Smoak is lured into a meticulously laid trap, the jaws of which are a heavily-armed counter-assault team, air support, a fleet of tactical vehicles and more firepower than brought down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He is captured by one of the only two honorable characters in the book, the true-blue FBI Agent Naomi Templeton who willingly tosses out her convictions and loyalty to the law to help him kill the lobbyist.

Instead, the fire that’s lit underneath him comes from the deaths of two people who had attended a party at Luke Devine’s mansion.A new Orphan X book became available on NetGalley and any reservations I might have had went out the window. The President sends a huge special ops team to capture Evan Smoke just so that he can Kill lobbyist, Luke Devine. Additionally, he’s sold scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. Indeed, as the story opens, Mia is still in a coma and stands little chance of fully functioning again and Peter is living with relatives. So, overall I liked the idea of the plot and the ongoing story of Evan Smoke, and I find the composition to be of a high standard, but the experience as a whole left me feeling underwhelmed.