Killers of a Certain Age

To start, I'll just say I expected to really like this. After all, this is the same author who brought Veronica Speedwell to life. Add in some lady assassins of a certain age, and I was prepared to be riveted. Despite all my issues with the book, I did wind up enjoying it more than it bothered me and read the bulk of it in one day. 

After an exciting start, set in the past, the pacing slowed to almost nonexistent for about 30 pages; it honestly felt more like a travelogue than a thriller. (I have nothing against books centered around traveling, but that's not you expect when you pick up a book like this.) The book does pick up though, when the ladies discover that their old employers want to take them out. Though, honestly? A bomb set to detonate aboard a cruise ship of 200, simply to kill four older women? Not only does that feel like overkill, I had a difficult time believing in the organization after that. They're supposed to be about making the world a better place and protecting the innocent. I know, the likelihood of an organization like that ever actually existing is pure fairy tale, but the thing is, the Board had to okay this attack, okay the deaths of approximately 200 people. Regardless of what these older women supposedly did, this level of collateral damage is unacceptable. But then the ladies set fire to the boat to give everyone a chance to get safely off. I admit this is where I became marginally invested. But, who cares about the environment, right? I guess the ship was going down anyway...

The swapping back and forth between timelines was both fairly jarring and came across as a little clunky. Mostly because the chapters set in the present are told in past tense from Billie's POV, while the chapters set in the past are told in third person omniscient in present tense. Even events that happened before the events being recounted are told in present tense (like when Billie is baking, but it also seems like she's at the airport, or when Nat's grandmother is being narrated about as though her antics are happening currently, even though she's been dead for 30 years). I cannot fathom the reason this decision was made. It made the past sections feel pretty amateurly written, like the author didn't have the best grasp of how to use present tense, and I found myself editing the book as I read instead of, you know, paying attention to the story. 

I also really wish we had gotten some sections from the perspective of the other four women instead of just Billie. While Billie eventually grew on me, it did feel like she was too “tough” to process her emotions even to the reader. For that matter, none of the characters felt especially well developed, but I do wonder if that's merely because we're seeing them largely through Billie's eyes. 

Now, this is relatively minor, but as a romance girlie, I wanted more from the relationship between Billie and Taverner, even though I know that was not the point of the story, but the way it was executed was decidedly meh. Also, an epilogue would have been nice.