Imagine the Golden Girls operating as deep-cover, paid governmental assassins and you've got the gist for this group. It would make a great movie - especially a Lifetime movie and is sassy sometimes trending to bawdy romp. Essentially, they think they're sailing off into the sunset of retirement, but in fact, someone has put a hit on them, and they have to resort to their training for survival. The hijinx are a bit over the top and redonkulous as you'd hope a geriatric killers-for-hire story to be. Along the way though, the author sneaks in perpective on aging and adjustments - health, widowhood, retirment, invisibility, sex/companionship lifelong friendships that add extra dimension to what could be a one-note story.

Enjoyable, playful, and low commitment. ( )

A quick read. Thank you Marilyn for pointing this one out. I agree, "Nice to see 4 women in their 60s behaving like Tom Cruise. Good fluff." An excellent review and just what I was looking for! Lovely romp! ( )

Big fun is unusual in a thriller and this one's got it! Four sixty year old lady retiree assassins are targeted by their former employer and must use all their skills to keep breathing. Each has specific skills that have been employed since the 1970s, and each has also lived varied personal lives without breaking their oaths of secrecy. The time jumps between their original tasks and the urgency of their new one flow smoothly and there's tons of humor in their repartee and tension in the resolution. Totally enjoyable! ( )

Such a great story here, and I loved all the different aspects that pulled it together. I loved how these four women worked together and had such trust in each other. I was very interested in Billie and enjoyed that she’s still a bit of a mystery at the end, but I most love that she finds joy in a job well done. I’m sure the film rights have already been bought for this, and it seriously would make an amazing movie; it’s such a good on-the-run thriller but with protagonists I love even more than the typical ones we’ve gotten in the past. ( )

This was a ridiculously unrealistic romp a book, a book I should have disliked intensely, or at least been annoyed by, but on the whole I really liked it.

Our protagonists are 4 sixty-something women who have worked for years for a shadowy organization formed after WW II, originally for the purpose of tracking down and exterminating former Nazi war criminals, but which morphed into an organization that eliminates bad guys of any ilk. Now the women are retiring, and the organization has sent them on a celebratory cruise on a luxury liner. Unfortunately they soon discover that someone--no spoiler to say that the someone is their former employer--is trying to kill them. They have to escape the cruise ship, find out who is after them, and bring their enemies to justice. The body count rises geometrically as the ladies devise more and more ingenious ways of killing. In between their current day adventures we get their back stories and accounts of their capers over the years of their careers. It's all narrated in away that is humorous, if a bit over the top and "cutesy" at times. I also felt that the characters sometimes sounded like teenage sorority girls rather than mature women, but it's all fantasy.

Buzz Feed referred to this book as "Golden Girls meet James Bond," and I liked the author's note at the beginning:

"Some of the dates are misleading; some of the names are lies. I'm not trying to protect the innocent. I'm trying to protect the guilty. You'll understand soon enough."

3 stars

First line: "'My mother always says its common as pig tracks to go around with a run in your stocking,' Helen says, eyeing Billie's ripped hosiery critically." ( )