Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn 2022

Recommended by Andy, this is a fun romp through assassinations with four tough broads.  As the book starts, Billie, Natalie, Mary Ann, and Helen are settling into their luxury accommodations on a tres chic yacht to celebrate their retirement after 40 years of assassinating bad guys and bad girls in their work for the Museum.  The Museum is the name adopted after WWII by a group of former intelligence and military leaders from the US and UK as well as resistance fighters from Italy, France, and Poland. Their mission was originally to rid the world of Nazis who had escaped after WWII, but it then grew to eliminating dictators, arms traffickers,  crime kingpins, drug lords, and other really bad people who were contributing to the decline in the world.

The book jumps back and forth from 1978 when the four ladies did their first job to the present time when in their 60’s, it was ‘welcome to retirement’. The first chapter takes us to 1978 when they eliminated a Bulgarian arms dealer, his assistant, and his two bodyguards on a private plane as they were posing as stewardesses.  Fast forward to the present when they were about to enjoy the yacht and they chance to see a member of the Museum posing as a crew member—his only reason to do so is to eliminate them.  They do that to him and then begin a world wide chase to figure out why the Museum has turned on them and then to fix that problem.  Bodies pile up and the action is tense yet fun-filled.

This is a fine book mixing tension and humor and you do get to love these girls..  This is Raybourn’s only Museum novel but she has written two other series that may warrant reading.  I’d give this an A+ for beach reading come summer.