Nemesis, a review by Joanna – The Book Review Crew

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March 18, 2026

Nemesis

Gregg Hurwitz

493 pages

Published 11 Feb, 2025

Michael Joseph Publishers

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Nemesis is the tenth instalment of the ever-thrilling Orphan X action series about Evan Smoak, a former clandestine government assassin who atones for his past by using his special skillset to help people out of dangerous predicaments. This time it’s personal – he is pitted against his friend, armorer Tommy Stojak, and both would rather die than back down.

I’ve read all the books in this series, it’s one of my favourites, but instead of buying and reading on publication, it took the realisation that the latest one, Antihero, has recently been released to prompt me to get on to this one. As with all longer series, some books are better than others, possibly because authors start running out of ideas – for me it dipped around books 7-8 but have been back to 4-star territory since then.

I don’t actually like it when book & movie series try to up the ante by having the hero have to fight their best friend, but here at least we get to see both points of view, and how much the conflict costs both of them. Evan cannot forgive Tommy for supplying weapons to The Wolf, the antagonist of the previous book, Lone Wolf. And Tommy resents Evan’s self-righteous insistence that only he knows right from wrong – it’s not like he’s never made a mistake. The plot also delves into some very current social themes – marginalised white trash youths radicalised into race-hatred in dying small towns, presenting some truly awful characters as victims of their environments. Most get what they deserve, but it’s pretty bleak. Meanwhile Joey also finds out what it’s like to be manipulated into causing harm…

Overall I liked this well enough – it took me a while to get into it but by the last quarter I was hooked enough to keep reading through the night. The action scenes are exciting and the threat of some very nasty side-villains closing in added a layer of suspense. The ending felt sadly inevitable, and there were no great surprises, but I’m still looking forward to reading Antihero once I can get my hands on a copy.