I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna RaybournPublished by Penguin Publishing Group on 2022
Genres: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Women
Pages: 368
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: Netgalley
Buy on Bookshop
Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon.
They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn.
Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.
When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death.
Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman--and a killer--of a certain age.
I. Loved. This book.
Which is odd, right? Because this is just a straight-up mystery thriller. Not a hint of fantasy: urban, epic, or otherwise. This is really not my usual genre at all. As soon as I saw the blurb on NetGalley, though, I had to click request. And, happily, it was a very good decision! (Sometimes those gambles don’t work out.)
This novel is a meal of a mystery… wrapped in a thriller… with a heavy spice of Female Rage. … And if you’re a woman Of A Certain Age… being made to feel useless… Who hasn’t wanted to respond to all of that by murdering the shit out of the people who make you feel that way?
Waiting For Fairies
This book begins with our main foursome: Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie, boarding the cruise ship for their retirement cruise. We then bounce back and forth in time between their current problems, and their training and early lives as assassins working for the Museum.
This novel is a meal of a mystery (who marked them for death and why?) wrapped in a thriller (don’t get dead) with a heavy spice of Female Rage. If you’re a woman-shaped persona, you are very familiar with this rage. It’s the one that’s heated by cat-calling, having your suggestions ignored or condescended to at the meeting table, being disregarded, touched without your consent, having your autonomy questioned, being admired as an object, expected to kid-gloves everyone’s feelings except your own… And if you’re a woman Of A Certain Age, there is an extra serving of being made to feel useless, past your prime, and ignored.
Who hasn’t wanted to respond to all of that by murdering the shit out of the people who make you feel that way?
Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie actually get to do the murdering. The plot is a little rough in spots from the time-switching, but the atmosphere is absolutely perfect. This book is a cathartic, and left me sated and smiling. If only murder was as acceptable in real life…
This book will be published September 6th, 2022. You can pre-order it here (affiliate link): https://bookshop.org/a/7634/9780593200681 or click the button below.
