Evan Smoak used to be known as Orphan X: a figure as elusive as a rumour. Plucked from a foster home and trained as an off-the-books assassin known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak always fought to help those most desperate. The kind of help no one else could provide. But now, forced into early retirement, he dares not trust the phone call. Nor the caller claiming to be his mother, asking him to protect a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it stacks up. Yet it bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him, and from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security. But this time the danger is more personal than he could have ever imagined. Because blood runs deep . . .