South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
No retirement for these ‘Killers of a Certain Age’
‘Lost Kings’ a real find
‘Killers of a Certain Age’ by Deanna Raybourn. Berkley, 368 pages, $27
When it comes to retirement, not everyone is willing to go gentle into that good night, to set aside decades of skills, knowledge and camaraderie when one still feels vital and useful. That’s the theme Deanna Raybourn skillfully explores in her exciting “Killers of a Certain Age,” and the dilemma for Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie and Helen, coworkers and friends for more than 40 years who are not ready for that looming retirement.
But Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie and Helen don’t have ordinary jobs. They are assassins, members of the first all-female elite assassin squad. Each was recruited in 1978 by an “extra governmental” organization called the Museum that originally was formed just after WWII to hunt Nazis.
By the time Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie and Helen came along, the targets had switched to arms dealers, sex traffickers, the occasional dictator, cult leaders and corrupt judges. “Basically, not very nice people,” says Mary Alice, though we aren’t even sure these are the women’s real names.
But they realize their pensions — yes, they have them and good health benefits, too — may not last when they go on an all-expenses-paid retirement cruise in the Caribbean, only to learn they are the Museum’s new targets. The women use their expert training and finely honed instincts to save themselves and find out who wants them eliminated. And woe to anyone who thinks they will be easy targets just because their knees aren’t as spry and their hair is gray.
In “Killers of a Certain Age” Raybourn shows how older people, especially women, often are overlooked and underestimated, adds a soupçon of sophisticated humor and explores the power of female friendship. And Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie and Helen are very appealing characters, each of whom established through the years homes, hobbies, spouses and even legitimate jobs — after all, those assassination jobs aren’t daily assignments but are spread out by months, even years.
Raybourn is best known for her two Edgar-nominated series set during the Victorian era and a third series set during the 1920s. With the decidedly contemporary
and action-packed “Killers of a Certain Age,” Raybourn sets a new career path.
Lost and found ’The Lost Kings’ by Tyrell Johnson. Anchor, 368 pages, $27
The Kings of Tyrell Johnson’s intense psychological thriller “The Lost Kings” have nothing to do with royalty but are a fractured family who have lost their way together and as individuals. Johnson channels a bit of Tana French for a decidedly American story that starts on a high note and never falters as it reaches an intriguing finale.
“The Lost Kings” works well as a coming-of-age tale, a story of reconciling with the past and of wasted potential.
Jeanie King was 13 years old when she saw her father come home, covered in blood. Later that night, he left again, taking her twin brother, Jamie, with him. She never saw either again. This was the final cap to the twins’ fractured childhood. They had been raised mainly by their aunt and uncle because their mother had died in a car accident while they were unharmed in the back seat. The twins had only been living with their father for a couple years after he reclaimed them when his second military tour concluded.
Since then Jeanie has been lost. After her father and Jamie vanished, she moved back in with her aunt and uncle. Her teen years were filled with drugs, alcohol, anger and rebellion. She finally got herself together to move to England, attend Oxford University and graduate with honors in psychology.
Now, she works in a dead-end job, carries on with a married man and has complicated sessions with a therapist for whom she has little respect. But her concerns about Jamie and where he might be always have been central to her.
Then Maddox, her childhood friend and first love, shows up at her job. An investigative journalist, Maddox says he has found her father, who is still a fugitive wanted for murder, but no one knows where Jamie is.
Johnson keeps the reader off kilter as he moves “The Lost Kings” from the twins’ childhood to Jeanie’s life in Oxford. Her decision to follow Maddox’s instructions on finding her father in upstate New York is pivotal to her development.
“The Lost Kings” is a real find.