I really enjoyed this book. Sebastian, or Nine as he is referred to throughout most of the book, is a genetically modified human raised at the Pedemont Orphanage with 22 other orphans. This is not a real orphanage but a laboratory run by the Omega group. They are trained by the secretive Omega group to be chameleons, fighters, assassins and whatever else they need. When Nine decides he wants to be free and have his own life, he puts himself and mistakenly Isabelle at risk. I was hooked from the beginning in a plot that is all too believable. I will need to read the next two books in this trilogy. ( )

The Ninth Orphan by Lance and James Morcan is a book that drew me in instantly. From the introduction of the orphans as children, to the nail biting, how will it all end, ending, I was engrossed in this story.

The book begins with the twenty-three young orphans hiking through the woods with a single adult. The young orphan number nine is called upon to shoot a deer the group stumbles upon. He is handed the rifle and is tasked with ending the creature’s misery, but there is a problem. He is unable to take the lethal shot as he empathizes with the pain the creature is feeling.

The story then jumps several years into the future and focuses on a now grown orphan number nine. This is a story that has it all. The pages fly by as the reader is submersed in a suspense filled story, with plenty of action and many surprises.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a quick read that will not disappoint. This is the perfect introductory story in a trilogy, and I will soon be buying the other two. I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars. Well done, James and Lance. Well done.
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This is the first volume of The Orphan Trilogy, and the only volume as yet available as a physical book. I look forward to reading Volumes 2 + 3, when they also appear in physical form.

An organization called the Omega Agency have “bred” a series of “orphans” with superior genes and trained them from birth to be cold and cynical assassins. They have been assigned numbers instead of names (presumably) to depersonalize them.

The book relates the story of the most gifted of these orphans, Nine. He has made the decision to flee the organization, find out who he really is, and make a life of his own where the Agency cannot find him.

The two leaders of Omega, Kentbridge, who had been a father figure for Nine, and Naylor, are hot on his trail, together with a female orphan, Seventeen, who had always been envious of Nine´s favoured position and wishes to “terminate” him.

Nine arranges the sale to the Chinese of a valuable treasure in order to finance his future secluded life on a distant island. However he finds himself obliged to take with him a desirable Frenchwoman, Isabelle, who inadvertently learns of his destination. He cannot bring himself to kill her and thus must drag her with him as he flees.

Nine´s escape is aided by his amazing talent for assuming innumerable disguises, as taught him by the Agency.

The book distinguishes itself by its not only being an exceedingly readable page-turner of a thriller but also being one in which the protagonist is portrayed not just superficially, as is the general rule in such books, but as a more fully rounded character, a young man who is attempting to become a normal person, despite his more than tainted upbringing.

He begins his first real relationship with Isabelle, and his feelings for her are reciprocated.

This is a work of fiction, but figures and organizations from real life, such as the notorious Bilderberg Group, are mentioned. Various aspects of life we are aware of from “conspiracy theories”, such as mind control, form part of the book´s content.

I hope that the main theme of the book, that of the existence of these trained orphan assassins, is fiction, but it would not surprise me if it were not.

The book is well-written, and is a joy to read, though the authors should perhaps brush up their basic French skills.

I strongly recommend that you read this thrilling and illuminating book. ( )

This is a good thriller. You jump right into the story, which has plenty of twists and turns. It wasn't one of those books that you just can't put down, but once you started, it was easy to reader for an hour and think its only been ten minutes.

There were times when the special talent of the main character was a bit overused, but it didn't deter from the story. And there were things the characters did that seemed far fetched, but that's to be expected in a story like this.

The character development was woven into the story, so the characters felt very realistic without large chunks of the book devoted to that.

This book is a fun read and would make a great James Bond or Mission Impossible movie.
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The Ninth Orphan sits comfortably somewhere in between The Da Vinci Code and The Bourne Identity and has all the necessary ingredients for a good conspiracy thriller. Written in a clean, smooth, punchy style, the story starts in the middle of the action and keeps on running.
The protagonist Nine is one of twenty three orphans, raised by a secret organisation, to become highly advanced super spies, and now Nine realises he wants out.

One thing that sets this apart from other such thrillers is the weaving of real conspiracies/truths amongst the fictional story. It contains many references to things like the Bildeberg Group, the CIA's mind control project MKUltra, how Africa has been robbed of its resources by wars and big business, as is the set up of the whole world, and so on. (See the authors' non-fiction book The Orphan Conspiracies for a good compilation of such topics.)
The other thing that makes this different to your average thriller is the very concept of Nine and his fellow orphans. These are super spies, genetically enhanced, highly skilled, fluent in all languages, able to speed read/photographic memories etc. And, on Nine's journey, it's his being a master of disguise (or more: a chameleon, that can seamlessly blend into a new environment with the blink of an eye) that is most explored. The idea that he is always playing someone else and has never had a chance to become himself or know himself, is central, and as his captive Isabelle joins him for the chase, we see Nine alter in an emotive human way we can all recognise.

This is a really good book, but for me, there were a few things that stopped it from being superb. When there was so much originality surrounding the story, I felt a little disappointed at the times when it was all pretty standard thriller plot stuff, and those unique themes weren't explored more. Although Nine's childhood is often referred to, I felt there could have been much more- perhaps flashbacks like the prologue; I kept wanting to know more about the dark side of the orphans being raised. And when such potentially brilliant scenes arise like Cho Wu's acupuncture torture, I just wished the authors had taken things even further to create a darkly memorable scene such as Bond's torture in Casino Royale. (Cho Wu, by the way, is an excellent character- an agent with a sex addiction, which forms a neat little sub story with some much needed humour.) The Ninth Orphan nearly delivered on all cylinders, but just not quite, and I'm hoping that books two and three will satisfy my yearning for more.

Harry Whitewolf (Author of Route Number 11: Argentina, Angels & Alcohol). ( )