Summary and Reviews of Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Killers of a Certain Age

by Deanna Raybourn
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 6, 2022, 368 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 2023, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire – it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon.

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.

When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses-paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death.

Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The constant girl-power references and callouts feel a bit stale and inorganic, but the premise is a good vehicle for an action-mystery-assassin story, and the book delivers on everything we might want: Tricks of the trade (if you're disoriented underwater, breathe out and then follow the bubbles to the surface; soak tobacco in water to make poison), a detailed scene of losing a tail in New Orleans' French Quarter, another of escaping bodyguards in the Paris catacombs, an elaborate scheme in Zanzibar to kill one of the few living Nazis. The tension is low, but the mystery remains alive until the last pages...continued

Full Review Members Only (634 words)

(Reviewed by Chloe Pfeiffer).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Nazi Plunder

Black-and-white photograph of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in a German salt mine with looted paintings visible in foreground In Deanna Raybourn's novel Killers of a Certain Age, four women are betrayed by a fictional organization of assassins they joined that was formed to hunt down and kill former Nazis after the end of World War II and the fall of the Third Reich. Part of the organization's goal is recovering any artworks the Nazis may have looted and hoarded, and returning the art to its previous, rightful owner.

Indeed, the Nazis looted more than 20% of the art of Europe, according to the US National Archives. As early as 1933, they began purging "degenerate art"—Cubist, Surrealist, Expressionist and Impressionist paintings—from German public institutions, some of which they destroyed. "We know that they burned several thousand—at ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Killers of a Certain Age, try these:

  • The Sequel jacket

    The Sequel

    by Jean Hanff Korelitz

    Published 2025

    About this book

    More by this author

    After the "insanely readable" (Stephen King) and "perfectly told" (Malcolm Gladwell) New York Times bestseller The Plot comes Jean Hanff Korelitz's equally captivating new novel: The Sequel.

  • A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage jacket

    A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage

    by Asia Mackay

    Published 2025

    About this book

    Two former serial killers trying to keep their past buried realize that old habits die hard in this "wildly original, razor-sharp thriller" (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark).

We have 6 read-alikes for Killers of a Certain Age, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Deanna Raybourn
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
by Clare Leslie Hall
A love triangle reveals deadly secrets in this thriller for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Whyte Python World Tour
    by Travis Kennedy

    Rikki Thunder, drummer for '80s metal band Whyte Python, is on the verge of fame, love—and a spy mission he didn’t expect.

  • Book Jacket

    The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
    by Liza Tully

    A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

Who Said...

The only completely consistent people are the dead

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

E H L the B

and be entered to win..