{"id":19351,"date":"2024-02-19T16:31:43","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19351"},"modified":"2024-02-19T16:31:43","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:31:43","slug":"lone-wolf-by-gregg-hurwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19351","title":{"rendered":"‘Lone Wolf,’ by Gregg Hurwitz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Clouds boiled up over the opposing ridge, backlit and tumultuous. A scorched violet sangria sky breathed its last breaths. Nighttime had dusk in its teeth already, choking it out. There was electricity in the air, and the sky was vast and dangerous, and somewhere far to the west over the Malibu hills, the tide thrashed against the coast. Alone for a moment on this spot, Evan had the feeling of standing on the planet itself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At this point in my reading life, <\/strong>there are two annual events I look forward to like Christmas. One is Andrew Klavan\u2019s Cameron Winter novels. The other is Gregg Hurwitz\u2019s Orphan X novels. A new Orphan X is just out. It\u2019s called Lone Wolf<\/a><\/em>, and I think it may be the best so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evan Smoak, our hero, lives his life according to his operational Ten Commandments (essentially based on Twelve Rules for Life<\/a><\/em> by Jordan Peterson, who is a friend of the author). This keeps his existence tight and controlled, as he carries out his vocation of helping the helpless, when summoned by a call to his private phone number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s out of character for him to lose himself for days on an alcoholic binge. But that\u2019s just what he\u2019s doing at the beginning of Lone Wolf.<\/em> To be fair, he\u2019s been having a rough time lately. His goth foster daughter Joey, who just started college, has decided she wants to pledge a sorority, and is suffering all kinds of female angst. The neighbors at his condo are trying to involve him in a HOA president takeover scheme. But the real problem is that he just met \u2013 at last \u2013 his birth father, and the meeting was nothing at all like he\u2019d anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he has another family member, also recently discovered \u2013 a loser, alcoholic brother. And that brother has a daughter \u2013 Evan\u2019s niece. When she calls in desperation, asking Evan to help her find her missing dog (the ugliest dog Evan ever saw), he tries to explain that this isn\u2019t the kind of thing he does. But her tears move him irrationally. Okay, he\u2019ll do what he can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little does he know that the search will lead him to a murder \u2013 the murder of a brilliant scientist in the Artificial Intelligence field. When he realizes that this murder is just one in a string of assassinations, all carried out against people with connections to cutting-edge computing, he has to go hunting for the assassin, who turns out to be an incredibly dangerous \u2013 and ruthless \u2013 young woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gregg Hurwitz turns out excellent prose (though I did catch one grammatic error). But where he really excels is as a plotter. Lone Wolf<\/em> is packed with breakneck action, and the breathing intervals feature hilarious farce, as Evan and Joey, each in their own ways, find themselves operating in worlds way outside their comfort zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a disturbing preview of a possible dystopian future. And in the end, another personal kick in the stomach for Evan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lone Wolf <\/em>is a really, really good novel, in spite of some \u201cgirl boss\u201d moments. Cautions for language and violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clouds boiled up over the opposing ridge, backlit and tumultuous. A scorched violet sangria sky breathed its last breaths. Nighttime had dusk in its teeth already, choking it out. There was electricity in the air, and the sky was vast and dangerous, and somewhere far to the west over the Malibu hills, the tide thrashed … Continue reading ‘Lone Wolf,’ by Gregg Hurwitz<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[1116,5074,2107],"class_list":["post-19351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-gregg-hurwitz","tag-lone-wolf","tag-orphan-x"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19351"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19353,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19351\/revisions\/19353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}