by Deanna Raybourn
2.5/5 Stars
Genre: Fiction, mystery, assassin thriller
Time period: 1979-1981, present day
Four retirement-age assassins are finally getting out of the business. Their employer, known to all as The Museum, treated them to a congratulatory retirement cruise. But the relaxation doesn’t last long for the female retirees when the realize The Museum has its sights set on their extermination. The women work together on one last mission – uncover who has it out for them and stop them before it’s too late.
I had such high hopes for this book.
The premise was refreshing and fun – 60-year-old assassins entering retirement after 40 years of work. However, the execution fell flat.
The reader is taken between two different time periods: present day, told in the past-tense, first-person POV following Billie and 1979-1981 told in the present-tense, third-person POV also following Billie.
I can’t tell you how long it took me to realize that Billie was the focus in both time periods. Normally a split time line doesn’t bother me at all – done well and I actually really like these types of books. However, the tense usage change confused me greatly and I didn’t like the POV changes, since we were following the same character. Writing in the first-person is already iffy for me with regards to enjoyability…again, done correctly and it’s not even something I think about, but this was so choppy that it irritated me greatly.
The majority of the book was set in the present day, but the occasional flashback chapters were annoying and distracting – they didn’t seem to add much to the plot except to act as an info dump as to how these 60-year-old women were so adept at what they were about to do in the “present day” chapter that followed. I also found that the numerous info dumps via dialogue felt like lazy writing.
The plot itself wasn’t overly convincing, and I had a hard time believing the initial premise of The Museum targeting these women after 40 years of service. There were a lot of convenient occurrences that just so happened to pan out in the women’s favor, details which felt forced just for the sake of continuing the story.
It also didn’t help that the mastermind behind the attack is obvious from the minute the individual is introduced to the storyline.
All that being said, this was a fairly quick read with a fair bit of humor. It was refreshing to follow protagonists that weren’t 19 years old and magically excellent at everything they do. I did enjoy the ties to Nazis and the hunt for stolen art, as well as how that tied back into the conclusion of the story.
Please don’t mistake my negative comments as me telling you to not read this book, but just as a warning to go into it with eyes-wide-open that it’s an entertaining premise with sub-par execution.
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