Audiobook review: Kills Well with Others by Deanne Raybourn
Kills Well with Others is another excellent story and adventure for these four sexagenarian killers. Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie teach us that life doesn’t end after you reach a certain age, and with care and purpose, these years can be even better than those that came before.
Being called back into action isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you’ve lived your life a certain way. These four women are assassins in their souls and seem to be always on alert. Despite not working together, or at all, for a couple years, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie gel as soon as they are together. I love the deep bond and friendship that can be restored in seconds. I loved how they work as a team. I love the personal parts of the story such as Billie struggling with her relationship with Tavner and Helen dealing with the loss of her husband and moving on. I also love that significant others are part of the action this time around.
The story itself is engrossing as the foursome try to figure out who may be after them. Like the first book, the flashbacks both give insight into Billie’s character but also hints at what they are facing in their current mission. The mission is off the books, but just as deadly and important since a mole at the Museum is suspected of turning over the women to a killer.
Narration: the story is shared in the present day via the first person POV of Billie and via flashbacks that are in an omnipresent third person POV. There are two narrators for this story: Christina Delaine voices the flashbacks. She uses a no-nonsense voice for the narrator with little emotional inflection. She changes her voice for dialogue, giving each character a unique voice, adjusting for gender and age, and she has a large array of accents. Jane Oppenheimer voices the first person POV of Billie in the “present.” Her voice is softer around the edges, more friendly and inviting – fitting of the 60-year old. She fills her narration with emotion, and I loved how she would pick up her pace, creating urgency in high-stress situations. She also changes her narration for dialogue, successfully adjusting for gender, age, and accent. Both narrators add much to the story, and I really liked the two different styles for the two different POVs.
Kills Well with Others is an excellent story that proves life doesn’t end after 50. I love that our main characters aren’t superheroes, just well seasoned women who spent decades being very good at their jobs. But these women don’t have it easy, they have aches and pains and need help. And they continue to learn and confirm that they need to trust and rely on one another.
My Ratings
Story: A-
Narration: A
Jen
About the Book:
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.
Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Narrators: Jane Oppenheimer, Christina Delaine
Series: Killers of a Certain Age #2
Genre: Mystery/Action, Women’s Fiction
Audiobook Release Date: March 4, 2025
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
Source: Publisher
Audio Speed: 1.4x