Review of Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2) by Deanna Raybourn

Killers of a Certain Age was darkly funny, action-packed, feminist, and friend-focused. I love the second installment's return to my favorite aging assassins and their quick-thinking, spry, deadly answers to those who have broken moral codes--and who have our protagonists in their sights.

You could get a real job instead of this endless loop of make-believe, this merry-go-round of cover stories and covert assignments.

But you don't. Because the person you're supposed to kill has been chosen for a good reason. Whatever contract exists between human beings, a contract of decency and common humanity, they've broken it.

The first installment of Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age series was a fun, darkly funny, feminist story about a retiring female team of elite assassins. It was the right book at the right time for me: entertainment in the perfect combination of action and suspense, loyal friendship, clever plotting, and the promise of love.

Book two picks up when our main characters, having laid low and lived their own lives for a year, are contacted by the Museum, the elite assassin organization they used to work for. An Eastern European gangster has obtained the names of agents who have stood in his way over the years, and our aging assassins seem likely to be next on his hit list. They must figure out who's turned traitor on the Museum and shared this information--and stay alive long enough to bring them to justice.

I remain fully invested in this premise of aging elite assassins who feel deep affection for and, at times, annoyance with each other. Their age plays into their potential disguises (and the ribbing they give each other about vanity or work they've had done), but generally they remain mentally and physically spry enough to think several steps ahead and to move lithely and with deadly precision (whew, that train ride!).

Somebody has to put the chessboard to rights, pick up the wrecked pieces and set it back at the start. So you pick up your bag and you close the door behind you, just like you've closed a hundred other doors. And you know that every time you do, you've left another piece of you behind.

Kills Well with Others sometimes feels a little bit as though Raybourn is gamely giving her readers what they want (more Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, Natalie--and Tanner!) rather than writing a book she felt compelled to put out into the world. But I'm one of those who are eager for more time with these clever, sometimes grumpy, often spontaneous, satisfyingly quick-thinking assassins who are loyal to each other above all. The mind-bending examinations of what other characters might be up to and the combat and narrow escapes keep the pacing lively and engaging. In between, Raybourn allows friendships and love to grow and change. If Raybourn keeps writing this series, I'll read every last installment.

I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley.

More Deanna Raybourn love

Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful Killers of a Certain Age, which was the first in the Killers of a Certain Age series.

And I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the sequels A Perilous Undertaking, A Treacherous Curse, A Dangerous Collaboration, and A Murderous Relation. (There are currently nine books in the series.)