Killers of a Certain Age

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (2022) 353 pages

Four women‒Billie, Helen, Natalie, and Mary Alice‒were recruited to become a team of elite assassins forty years ago by an organization called "the Museum." The Museum has a Board that determines which bad actors need to be taken out. Their original mission was to kill Nazis, but over time they have included dictators and others who have escaped justice.

But now the women are sixty and being treated to a Caribbean cruise in honor of their retirement. All goes well until they make the stunning discovery that one of their former colleagues is undercover on board their ship, and they realize they may have been targeted for extermination themselves. All their instincts kick into gear as they try to protect themselves using only their own resources; they can't ask for the usual logistical help from the Museum, because it might be that their own bosses are the culprits.

Hands down, this page-turner is the most exciting book that I've read in a while. [Thanks for the recommendation, Kara!]

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (2014) 373 pages

In this tenth book in the Inspector Gamache series, Armand Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, have retired and moved to Three Pines, a small village in Canada, an hour or two outside Montreal. Gamache is still fighting the demons that led to his retirement, both physical and mental.

A year prior to the events in this story, Clara, an artist who was finally recognized for her work at age 50, sent away her husband, Peter. It was apparent that Peter was jealous of his wife's newfound success. They had agreed that he would return in exactly one year and they would meet and decide if they still had a future together. However, it's now a year later and he has not shown up. Clara finally asks Gamache to help her find Peter. Gamache and his former second-in-commend, Beauvoir, work together to find the pieces of Peter's journey over the past year, and with Clara making the decisions, they set out to find him, traveling up the St. Lawrence River via car, airplane and boat. Clara does not know if her relationship with Peter can be saved, but she feels that she will know when she sees him. As they close in on finding him, they begin to realize that there has been a crime and the journey takes on urgency.

As always, Penny develops her characters fully; I feel as if I know these people. The dialogue is true, and the meshing of the people–and sometimes the annoyances they have with each other–are real.

The Man in the Wooden Hat / Jane Gardam 233 pp.

This is the second in the Old Filth (failed in London, try Hong Kong) trilogy, giving the reader the story of Elizabeth, Filth's wife.  Like Filth, she is a child of the Empire's Far East, and is also marked by youthful suffering: in her case, she and her parents were interned and nearly starved in a Japanese camp during World War II.  Betty and Filth have a strong marriage if a somewhat incomplete one; we learn here about Betty's long connection to Veneering, Filth's archenemy at the Hong Kong Bar, and to Veneering's beloved son Harry.  A bit slower to get rolling than Old Filth, but ultimately just as satisfying.  I am halfway through the third volume and will be sorry to finish.

The Sea, the Sea / Iris Murdoch 495 pp.

Charles Arrowby is just retired from a sparkling life as a London theatre director of some fame.  He chooses an isolated house on the south coast and begins his memoirs, in which he will presumably write of his long love affair with a much older actress.  Instead, he almost immediately becomes haunted by visions and strange sounds in his house and in the wild water where he daily swims.

And the isolation doesn't last.  He stumbles across Mary, a woman he loved as an adolescent and was mysteriously separated from.  She is frumpy and seems unhappy; Charles is a man of action and determines that he will rescue her and finally experience true love.  As he hatches his bizarre and rather frightening scheme, he is visited by a host of characters from his past, all crowded into his poorly-equipped cottage.

Charles is a horrible egomaniac but a fascinating narrator.  Toward the book's end, he acquires a kind of wisdom in beautiful passages that owe much to Eastern religious tradition.  I can't categorize this novel, but I recommend it nevertheless.