This is the second book in Killers of a Certain Age that follows around four older female assassins. I love that they are still badass in their 60s, working as trained killers. This story follows them as they travel around the world trying to figure out who exactly is out to kill them for past kills.

One part I found funny: talk about what the young people call butt dials/booty calls/Netflix and chill.

4,5 Stars
After the events of the last book, Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie, our beloved sixty+ year-old deadly assassins, have been living a low-key life for the last year, until they get a call from The Museum’s director, Naomi. It seems some of their past files have been leaked and one operative has been murdered. Naomi tasks them with eliminating the threat while they also deal with a possible mole within.

The files leaked paints targets on their backs so they must hunt down the killer lest they be picked off one by one. Their mission takes them on a wild adventure across the globe, crossing the Atlantic to the UK and then all over Europe. It was a fun and exciting ride!

Billie narrates the story in the present and in the past, giving glimpses of the targets and missions in the past that may be part of the threat.

I love the idea of women still being vibrant and deadly in their 60s and these ladies are awesome! They’re each other’s ride-or-die, but that didn’t stop some good-natured squabbling, and the banter cracked me up! Their disguises on the train were hilarious! Nula the chicken was priceless and stole the show! Not sure if we’ll get another mystery with these gals, but I’m so there if we do!

This is the second book in this series and while I haven't read the first book I feel like I was able to get the full grasp of the story. I think that this was a fun story and enjoy that the main characters are a group of older ladies. The mystery elements were up and I liked the flash backs. If you enjoy books from this author before I think you will enjoy this one.

✨ Review ✨ Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn; Narrated by Jane Oppenheimer & Christina Delaine

Thanks to Berkley, PRHAudio and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

They’re baaaaaack! The four ladies of Killers of a Certain Age are back and better than ever! This book takes us across Europe as Billie, Helen, Natalie, and Mary Alice are back on the prowl for someone who is hunting them back.

I loved the sights and scenes of the book - from a cruise ship to a train, from mountains to beautiful islands and Eastern European towns - you get to adventure with these women while you're reading.

The book delves into their relationship more, exploring their friendships and working relationships in the past and present. I loved finding out more about the bonds that hold this group together.

Funny as ever, there are jokes galore, and I love watching how these women interact across the pages. This was so much fun to read!

🎧 The audio narration was excellent, making it so hard to put down. From intonation to accents, the narrators KILLED it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: thriller, mystery, women's fiction
Setting: across Europe primarily
Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
Reminds me of: book number 1, the Golden Girls as assassins
Pub Date: March 4, 2025

Read this if you like:
⭕️ characters over 60
⭕️ ethical assassins
⭕️ female friends that make each other laugh
⭕️ European sites and adventures

I loves these kicks ladies but think I'm in the minority for finding this book not quite as fun and satisfying as the first one. I really loved the travelogue and the humor, but I felt like the character development got stuck. Will definitely read the next book and hope there's more of what I was looking for!

Our four female assassins are back! This time, they’ve been hired for a covert mission to uncover a mole within their organization and take down a gangster targeting Museum agents.

Everything I loved about Killers of a Certain Age—the witty dialogue, the larger-than-life “mature” female characters, and the engaging writing—can also be found in Kills Well With Others. However, this time, the characters' mission and relationships are even more deeply developed.

I combined the audio version with the physical book and really loved the narration, so I listened to most of the book. The audio is easy to follow, featuring hilarious comedic timing and excellent voices with amazing accents. Highly, highly recommend this format!

Raybourn makes Kills Well with Others accessible to new readers by providing a helpful recap of Killers of a Certain Age, allowing it to be enjoyed as a standalone. The story wraps up neatly without any cliffhangers, so I’m curious if another book is in the works. I’m definitely hoping for more—if there is, count me in! I absolutely love everything about this series! ❤️

Other highlights: side characters, crucial flashbacks, art history

This was a good follow up to the first book in this series, but a lot of the issues I had with the first book, continued into this book. First of all, we didn't need all of the reminders that the women were "so old" because they aren't. It felt weirdly ageist at some points. The way this was written, kept making me think the women were in their 90s, not their 60s. I was also a little bored by the pacing in this one and felt like there needed to be more action and intrigue throughout the story. There were also some weird European references that seemed to miss the mark. They were super strange to read and didn't make a ton of sense.

It was still overall a good book, but I was expecting more.

4.5 stars. A great follow-up to Killers of a Certain Age, the first in this series. Once again, the reader is able to follow the adventures of Billie, Helen, Natalie and Mary Alice, four “retired” professional assassins. And, as much as I enjoyed their adventures in the first book, I may have enjoyed this one even more! Perhaps it is because I had some back story about the characters, which was added to and developed in this novel so that I felt as though I were reading about the newest adventures of some of my friends (if assassins were among my friends!). Replete with great pacing, heart-stopping action, humor, history, and plenty of twists and turns, this was a really enjoyable read. I look forward to the third in this series.

I’ve had this for a while and started it a number of times but just couldn’t get engaged in the story when all of a sudden t it was just what I needed. Murder, mayhem, betrayal-well true it’s like the real world but there was just something delightful with a group of older women setting the world straight. Not sure we need a third title in the series but this was an enjoyable read.

This was SO. MUCH. FUN. I had no idea there was going to be a sequel when I picked up Killers of a Certain Age and it was just an absolute delight to be back with these characters again. Will there be more? Please say there will be more!

I don’t consider myself the biggest fan of cozy mystery, but I enjoyed KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE enough to continue on with this (unexpected) sequel. It was just okay. For sure slower than your typical mystery, and it had its funny moments, but overall I think I’ll forget that I read this a month from now.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A true romp, Billie and friends are so fun to follow as they team up for "one last job" (or is it? I hope not!). As I get older, I love reading about more mature characters who are still living full lives and boy are these assassins doing just that! The relationships between Billie, Natalie, Mary Alice and Helen felt like they had real history and I love Billie and Taverner together (and apart, honestly). I've seen a few people calling these books a cross between the Golden Girls and Kill Bill, or Charlie's (retired/senior citizen) Angels and that's exactly the vibe.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC.

It was wonderful to be back with these characters once again! I enjoy the relationship they have with one another and their kick-butt attitudes. The author did a great job keeping my interest with the different timelines, the action sequences, and the mystery of it all. I also enjoy the descriptions of the different places the characters get to visit; it makes me feel like I'm actually there with them. I recommend to those who enjoy the idea of aging women who haven't lost their stuff yet.

I was so excited to see that Killers of a Certain Age wasn’t going to end and that readers were going to get a chance to tag along with Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie once again!

Who would have thought a series about four senior-aged assassins would bring me so much joy? Raybourn has truly created a killer world I want to be part of, from the glimpses into the group's early cases to their present day interactions. The way these ladies interact together is both heartwarming and down right hilarious at times.

I loved the layers of the case that Raybourn has sent our assassins to investigate this time around. The secondary characters truly add to the depth of the story along with snippets of previous cases.

This is the second book in the series and while I think you could get away with not reading the first beforehand, I do recommend starting in order.

This is just such a fun world and I loved learning more about our lead. This has Deanna Raybourn classic lines and her writing is so distinct in her characters and personalities - and this style works really well for me! I had a lot of fun with this story and can't wait for whatever she writes next!

Deanna Raybourn is one of my preferred comfort authors, even when she's writing about murder and mayhem. (If you haven't read her Veronica Speedwell series, it's one of my favorites!)

In Kills Well With Others she continues the Killers of a Certain Age series with four women assassins who still have what it takes after decades in action. Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie receive a summons from the mysterious organization known as The Museum, a shadowy entity directing their elite team of assassins to take out some of the world's worst figures. They are directed to pursue an Eastern European gangster, but the case quickly becomes more complicated than they expected, and they end up on a wild adventure across the globe.

Ms Raybourn writes such fun thriller mysteries: brilliant courageous women, so much witty banter, fantastic descriptions that make the settings come alive. I loved that she had these women who might have been nearing retirement age in another life still completely competent and accomplishing their missions. The idea to use a fake menopause app for hiding their communication from anyone who might get ahold of their phones was genius! Also, I learned the phrase 'Stern Brunch Daddy' which I will now add to my vocabulary. :)

Note: if you read this, there a chapter around the painting 'The Shepherdess of the Sphinxes.' Go look it up and see the glorious lioness women surrounded by the remains of the men they devoured, with their majestic shepherdess standing over them!

Thank you so much to Berkley and Netgalley for this book!

Kills Well with Others, by Deanna Raybourn, brings back our favorite female assassins Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie. A year after the crazy happenings in Killers of a Certain Age, these sixty-ish year old are each living a quiet life under the radar, enjoying some well-deserved rest. But they're all very excited when they're called back into action by Naomi Ndiaye, head of their elite assassin organization known as the Museum. Some important and confidential files have been leaked and an operative has been murdered, so the fab four are tasked with eliminating the threat while also dealing with a possible mole within organization.

As we follow along on their escapades, the ladies are taken all across Europe and meet up with a host of fabulous characters - some returning and some new faces. The story is narrated by Billie in both past and present timelines and we're given a look into some of the groups missions in the past and a peak into who the mole might be.

The whole thing was fun and exciting! I loved the fact that these ladies would all kill for each other, bu they still sqabble like siblings. The banter was awesome, the action was unstoppable, the disquises were perfect, and I enjoyed the whole ride. I couldn't tell if the ending showed a chance of a third installment of these fearless assassins, but if so, I'll be first in line for the ride.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I'm not the biggest mystery fan but I loved Killers of a Certain Age so much that when I saw this on NetGalley, I smashed that request button so fast. If it has assassins, I'm going to read it regardless of genre. And characters in their 60s? Yup.

It was so fun to be back with Billie, Helen, Mary Alice and Natalie and all the people they've collected. For secret assassins, they sure do collect people.

I think this could be read as a standalone. It was a completely separate storyline than the first book and there's plenty of background info. If you're looking for a fun mystery, please check this book out. Can't wait to see if Deanna Raybourn revisits the characters in the future.

Thank you to @berkleypub for the early copy of Killers of A Certain Age. It's out now!

For some reason, America (and perhaps the world) has a fascination with retirees that are involved in detective work and/or murder-for-hire. Whether it's Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club, Tess Gerritsen's The Spy Coast, the TV show Only Murders in the Building, or Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age, they've all been successful and popular over the last few years. Raybourn's follow-up to her enjoyable 2023 novel picks up a few years after the events of that book, and our four main characters are back for another adventure.

To recap, the series focuses on four women—Billie (the main narrator), Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie—who were all recruited to join an international group of assassins known as "The Museum" while they were in college in the late 1970s. The Museum was originally founded to track down and kill Nazis who had evaded capture, with a secondary focus on reclaiming looted art and returning it to its rightful owners., With the world running out of Nazis, "the Museum turned its efforts to drug smugglers, arms dealers, human traffickers—folks who needed killing, in other words."

Our ladies, however, are retired, and fully intend to stay that way. But when there's a security breach at the Museum, and their identities are leaked to the child of a man they'd murdered decades prior, the women must once again mobilize and put to use their decades of plotting, tracking, and murdering experience in a game of "kill or be killed." Once again, we're treated to action-filled sequences paired with witty banter (and even a Schwarzenegger-esque pun after a killing) while layering in just enough seriousness to keep things from tipping too out of balance.

I enjoyed Killers of a Certain Age, to the point that it finished just outside my Top 20 in 2023. I'd forgotten about Raybourn's saucy sense of humor with her ladies; there's a good amount of humorous back-and-forth throughout that offsets any significant tension. Its fun, and the jocular tone it strikes, even during potentially perilous sequences, is reminiscent of James Bond movies in the 1980s before things got a lot more gritty and serious with Daniel Craig. This is a kick-back-and-enjoy-it type of book. It's well-structured and plotted (although at times a bit too conveniently), but it's one where you have a good idea that the good guys (or girls) are going to prevail in the end.

Raybourn does a nice job of succinctly recapping the first book and reminding the reader of the key pieces of information and events of that story, to the point that you could conceivably read this as a stand-alone novel. But why would you? If you haven't read either, start at the start with Killers of a Certain Age. And if you enjoyed the original Killers, I suspect you'll like this one at least as much, if not more. It fell a bit short of a 5-star book for me, mostly because of the lack of true tension, but it's a solid 4.5 that held my interest and attention throughout.

A few days ago, Deanna Raybourn did a bookstore event at the Poisoned Pen in Arizona that was streamed on YouTube, and an audience member asked her if she’d received any pushback to writing about older women. Surprisingly, she revealed that she had written Killers of a Certain Age at the behest of her publisher:

“It was their idea. They were having a meeting at my publisher’s office in New York, and someone raised the question, ‘Why do we not have more books about older women doing kick-ass things?’ Somebody else said, ‘We need to,’ and somebody else said ‘Well, who would write it?’ and apparently, they all said my name at the same time, which I took as a tremendous compliment. That was literally the brief: would you be interested in writing a book about older women doing something cool? And I said yes, absolutely.”

As someone who is constantly on the lookout for books about vibrant older women (I even maintain a list of them here), at first I felt a little sad that publishers are receiving so few manuscripts with strong female characters in their 50s and beyond that they had to basically commission one. But since their discussion led to Raybourn writing about four female assassins in their 60s, everything worked out very well indeed, based on Killers of a Certain Age and its brand-new sequel, Kills Well With Others.

Kills Well begins two years after the events in the first book; our lethal quartet survived all of the attempts on their lives in Killers, but the thing about being an assassin is that not everyone is going to be happy with the results of your labors. Somebody is determined to avenge a killing that happened decades ago, and the women need to come out of retirement once again, banding together in order to protect themselves and their loved ones.

The assignment takes Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie to one picturesque location after another; Raybourn revealed that she spent a week in Venice doing research, and the scenes set in the Floating City are especially well-rendered.

The book is full of action, thrills and a welcome bit of humor—at one point, the foursome acquire a chicken named Nula, which Natalie believes will help make her undercover identity as a peasant grandmother more convincing. Keeping a chicken alive while trying to kill a target isn’t easy.

During her bookstore talk, Raybourn stated that she’d kept a photo of Diane Lane taped to her computer as inspiration when she wrote Killers of a Certain Age. It would be amazing to see Lane, who recently turned 60, portray one of Raybourn’s assassins. If only Hollywood was as open to stories about older women kicking ass as the publisher of this novel.