While female readers of a certain age will find plenty to love in this celebration of four 60-year-old female assassins who take on the unexpected post-retirement assignment of saving their own lives with skill and savvy, this fast-paced revenge of the Bond "girls" (all …more grown up) has plenty of enjoyment packed in it for everyone.

From taking down a muscle-bound much younger man sent to assassinate them with a garrote masquerading as a bead necklace strung on piano wire, to a synchronized phone app featuring personalized kitties called "Menopaws", even Bond's "Q" did not create such witty and effective toys as these four women possessing very particular skills wield in their final mission. Long on experience in human nature, effective and thorough planning skills and creative ways in which tobacco and powdered dairy substitute can be used as weapons of destruction, Deanna Raybourn's four heroines more than make up for the better years behind them. Each has lived long enough to have welcomed both the joys and sorrows that molded their characters. When the stakes are highest, they perform at their best as a team - albeit one in which sniping at each other does occasionally get in the way.

Refreshingly funny with a clever timeline and creative use of point of view. (less)