Who knew I’d be on such an assassin kick? All I know is that it’s the end of the year and I was struggling to come up with something enticing to read. A quick internet search did bring Rob Hart’s Assassins Anonymous to my attention, though.
Mark, formerly known as The Pale Horse, used to be the most effective assassin on the black market, but for the past year he’s been out of the game. The biggest part of his life, besides his cat, P. Kitty, is his support group. While from the outside it appears as a run of the mill AA meeting, it is in fact a place where former assassins meet and try to make sense of the lives they’ve led verses the lives they want to lead. The group is small, just two former assassins, a serial killer, and group leader, Kenji. Mark relies on Kenji, his sponsor, for most things, and Kenji is more than happy to be Mark’s rock.
He’s coming up on his one year anniversary without having killed anyone, but he must have been found out, because one night while cleaning up from their latest meeting, Mark is paid a visit by a brute of a Russian. Rather than outright killing Mark though, he gives him a healthy stab, nicks his notebook and leaves. Mark isn’t quite sure what the significance of stealing his notebook was, but he’s at least aware enough to know that this is the beginning of something not good. The first thing he needs to do before he moves any further is get patched up. Astrid was his go-to former doctor for clean-up, but he gets more than he bargained for when she wants to be involved in what’s going down.
With Astrid and P. Kitty in tow, Mark travels globally to get some answers. This means interacting with his former company, all too aware that he might be signing his death warrant at any turn. He’s also aware that getting involved in any way with this world again means that he’s moving backwards in his recovery process. Though he never does actually kill anyone, he falls back into his Pale Horse persona, and that fills him with god-like happiness. Even though it feels good to dip a toe back into what he was so good at, he thinks about what made him want to reform in the first place. There are some really fun surprises near the end of this book, and Mark is a terrifically witty narrator.
Overall, I had a really fun time reading this book and it’s got me interested in what else Rob Hart has to offer. It looks like he has a series, along with several other stand-alone novels, so I’ve got my pick of the litter! I’m sure there will be another Rob Hart review in the future, so look out! In the meantime, if you like action mixed with a bit of comedy, I certainly recommend adding this to your must-read list.