Review By Gabrielle
Kills Well With Others is another fantastic book featuring a team of sassy female assassins in their sixties.
Favourite Quote:
“Do not grieve for the life you have not chosen. Very many people can reproduce, and they quite frequently do. We have different gifts and we are called to a different path. The world needs us, Miss. Webster, to remove what stands between good and decent people and chaos. We are necessary monsters.”
Book Synopsis:
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.
Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.
Review:
Fist pump in the air was my reaction when I got this ARC. I loved the first book, Killers of a Certain Age, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this second book. I was not disappointed. This book picks up about a year after we last saw Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie, four members of a shadowy organization called The Museum. They are highly trained assassins who take out bad people in the world in an effort to make it better for everyone. Except now they are in their sixties. Don’t let that fool you, though; these women are still badass.
This time, the ladies are looking for a criminal mastermind who seems to have connections inside The Museum and is taking out agents – and they seem to be next on the list. It’s a fight for their own lives as they trek around the world to solve the mystery and take out the threat. Interspersed with this present-day adventure are chapters from the past where we get more insight into the Museum, the training the ladies had, and a past case that seems to be connected to the current case. I loved these views of the past. They really help fill in the blanks for the reader as well as develop the characters further.
And the characters are wonderful. Each of them are just terrific. I particularly love their squabbles amongst each other, as only the oldest of friends can have. As with the last book, a lot of it focuses on Billie. She’s the one we really get to know. And it’s not all action and comedy. There are several surprisingly tender moments as Billie reflects on her life and what she has accomplished, and what she sacrificed to do it. Although this book could be read as a standalone, I would recommend reading Killers of a Certain Age first. There are some throughline plot points that will be better understood that way.
The pacing is so well done. The book starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. I didn’t want to put it down because I wanted to know what would happen next. The mystery takes them all over the world, and Deanna does a great job of describing each location. I felt like I had taken an around-the-world trip right alongside the boss ladies.
Kills Well With Others is the perfect, all-engrossing read to get lost in over a weekend.
Thank you, Berkeley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
