"I was playing at being retired because the truth is, I would be a killer until the day I died."
Our four favorite female assassins-of-a-certain-age are back! This time, the stakes and suspense are even higher, as they find themselves and the ones they care about the targets of a dangerous, unknown assassin in Kills Well with Others, Deanna Raybourn's sequel to her propulsive thriller Killers of a Certain Age.
In this follow-up, Raybourn delves more deeply into the history of the protagonists and their world. Recruited in the 1970s by the Museum, a secret organization that trains assassins, Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie became members of the agency's first all-female squad, Project Sphinx. Over the decades, the deadly team eliminated drug lords, arms smugglers, and human traffickers. As one Museum operative put it, they are the "necessary monsters" needed to "remove what stands between good and decent people and chaos." The Museum, with a mission to track down Nazis who had escaped justice, has a strict code by which they operate. That doesn't mean, however, that the women can't have a little fun while taking out the trash!
This new installment can easily be read as a stand-alone novel, while fans of the first book will enjoy learning character backstories through flashbacks from the '60s to the '80s. These provide useful context and set the scene for the current events, with alliances and motives that have been percolating for years. Past missions and assassinations are revisited in great and gory detail but, like the first book, the banter, snark, and comedy keep things light. "Do you travel with a torture kit?" Mary Alice asked pleasantly. "No, but it would be easy enough to put one together.... The kitchen is full of useful tools."
As the story begins, it's a few years after the events of the first book, and the Sphinxes have been greatly enjoying retired life, when they are summoned by the new head of the Museum. A mole within the organization is leaking the names of operatives. Agents have already been killed and the four protagonists are on the list of targets.
The women are as razor-sharp and deadly as ever but, realistically, need to pay more attention to their knees, backs, and other increasingly occurring aches and pains. It's rather inspiring to see how much can be achieved with some clever strategizing and dubious cocktails of potent painkillers which, together, create action scenes that are as cinematic, nail-biting, and most definitely as lethal as when the operatives were younger.
Danger and intrigue follow them around the world and Raybourn has a knack for setting the scene perfectly. Her descriptions of the many places they visit on their mission are sparkling and vivid, like an enchanting Venetian terrace garden "bordered by high brick walls, thick with creeping vines twined with tiny lights and wide planter boxes full of mandevilla."
Adding to the glamour of this jet-setting lifestyle are delectable descriptions of good food, wine, and high fashion. Billie and friends find creative ways to incorporate Hermès bags, Chanel No. 5, and Le Labo perfumes in their missions. They elaborate on what determines a good disguise, including makeup choices, hair color, and whether their suitcases are full of Ralph Lauren or knitwear from St. John. It also helps that one of their traveling companions--a retired assassin himself (and Billie's lover)--is an excellent cook, "whipping up a pitch-black squid ink risotto" and knowing how to use food as an effective interrogation tool.
The women are joined in this perplexing game of cat and mouse by a charming cast, and some literal cats. Raybourn dreams up fun, renegade characters--romantic partners, other Museum agents, civilians, and villains are fully fleshed out, with agency, motivation, and notable personalities. A few standouts are the dour matriarch of a crime family with a penchant for gourmet pastries, an earnest and hapless opera singer, and the clever young Ukrainian hacker who inventively butchers English idioms while setting the assassins up with all the latest spyware, gadgetry, and passports. "She'd saved our asses during our last mission, her biggest contribution being the creation of an app called Menopaws. She had populated it with animated cats and features for tracking days since our last periods and hot flashes. At least that's what it looked like. In reality it had given us a way to message each other without using any of the usual apps--and no male security detail was going to look twice at a Siamese in a beret who wanted to talk about vaginal dryness."
The well-plotted mysteries, ruthless assassinations, and glamorous jet-setting are certainly a highlight of this series but so is the study of powerful and enduring friendships. These women are a found family who bicker and tease, while fighting to the death for each other. And, as everyone knows, nothing builds bonds stronger than figuring out how to surreptitiously kill your target at a kids' birthday party. --Grace Rajendran