INTO THE FIRE is scary good. I made the smart move/mistake of picking this latest entry in Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series as a nightcap. By the next morning, it had turned into a bleary-eyed adrenaline surge, thanks to his perfect pacing, strong characterization and non-stop action scenes. You might ask for more, but what is more than 110% percent? Hurwitz attempts to answer that question.

Evan Smoak is the Orphan X of the series, a standout recruit of the government-created and then abandoned Orphan team, which sought to produce an elite group of special agents with superior skills. Evan has settled (almost) all accounts with those who had wished him dead while styling himself as The Nowhere Man, an anonymous individual who assists people in desperate need of the application of his wide skill set. As INTO THE FIRE begins, Evan comes to grips with deciding what color his next parachute will be. We’ll discuss that in a moment.

"INTO THE FIRE is scary good.... Hurwitz is one of the very few authors I know of who can write a posterior-kicking book and make the conclusion --- dare I say it? --- heartwarming."

Grant Merriweather is a forensic accountant whose firm’s services are very much in demand by law enforcement, attorneys and those who can afford their hefty fees. But if Grant is Merriweather the Great, his cousin Max is regarded as Merriweather the Less by everyone in the family, including himself. He is an underachiever, a disappointment to almost all who become involved with him, despite his own best efforts at self-improvement, which only seem to make things worse.

Accordingly, Max is extremely ill-prepared for what happens after Grant is brutally murdered, seemingly without reason or motive. Whoever committed this crime is now after Max, and he has almost no idea why. He is way outside of his limited field of expertise. A stranger takes pity on him and gives him the phone number of someone who supposedly will help. Max calls the number and finds himself talking to Evan Smoak, who is in the middle of his own identity crisis. Evan has decided that he is going to start putting his own life together in an attempt to live normally, or whatever closely passes for it. He plans to take one more case, which means helping one more person. That person turns out to be Max.

Evan quickly learns that Max’s problems are hydra-headed. Just when he thinks he has eliminated the danger to Max’s life, something else pops up wanting to take out his client. With some outside assistance, Evan discovers layers upon layers of corruption within the rapidly decaying city of Los Angeles. He’s up to doing whatever it takes to clean it up, at least emotionally. From a physical standpoint, Evan has sustained an injury that at best keeps him from functioning at 100% and at worst is significantly life-threatening. It doesn’t stop him, though, and by the explosive end, Max has acquired a lot more than having his life saved.

Hurwitz is one of the very few authors I know of who can write a posterior-kicking book and make the conclusion --- dare I say it? --- heartwarming. On top of that, let me hint at something about the (very) ending of INTO THE FIRE. It seemed as if Hurwitz was wrapping up the series and bringing all things Evan Smoak to a close. Then, in the final sentence, he demonstrates that he is only getting his protagonist warmed up. More layers. More Evan Smoak. More Orphan X novels. It doesn’t get any better than this.