By Gregg Hurwitz (Michael Joseph) $37

It has only been a year, but this third instalment of Orphan X has seemed a long time coming.

X itself, followed by The Nowhere Man were such terrific thrillers (and, for once, thriller is the right word, rather than crime or mystery) that one could only hope Gregg Hurwitz could keep it up.

With Hellbent, he has managed it, although in such a way that his expertise as a writer and plotmaker has become even more apparent.

The story begins precisely where The Nowhere Man ended: with a phone call. It is from his old mentor, Jack – the man who took the young orphan, gave him the name Evan Smoak, and then made him into X, the most proficient in all ways of the undercover orphans.

This disturbing call is followed by another, this from Van Shriver, Evan’s nemesis, who has Jack helpless in a helicopter, threatening to throw him out unless Evan capitulates in every way. Needless to say, this does not happen, with Jack making his own way out of the helicopter, although dying in the midst of the mayhem he manages to create.

So we are then off on another fine adventure with the Nowhere Man. Initially this involves Evan deciphering a cleverly hidden message from Jack.

It leads him to a package hidden in a house in Oregon. The ‘‘package’’ turns out to be a 16-year-old girl, Joey, who is nearly as adept at every kind of fighting as Evan.

But – and this is where Hurwitz shows his skill – she is also enormously adept at computer hacking. She would even give The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander a run for her money.

Hurwitz has learned an enormous amount about what is possible with computers, and how they can be used both to find almost

The story begins precisely where The Nowhere Man ended: with a phone call.