Friday, August 6, 2021

The house of killers by Samantha Lee Howe

Neva is walking death, a highly trained assassin who picks off her targets with calculated precision.  She doesn't let emotion get in the way, and her skills have not gone unnoticed.  Since childhood Neva has been trained and conditioned to follow her orders, to obey her handler and those above her without question and without emotion - and with her knack for disguising herself she could be right in front of you and you would never know.  She is a ghost, one that has hidden in plain sight for years with no one the wiser.  Michael Kensington is an MI5 operative working outside the mainstream in the Archive team.  His job is to help solve puzzles, to profile suspects - and not always on the cold cases that Archive supposedly works on.  One of those cold cases leads Michael to Neva, an assassin who doesn't seem to quite fit the mould.

When one of Neva's targets turns out to be another assassin who needs to be 'retired' it offers a glimpse into the future, and small cracks start appearing in Neva's carefully cultivated façade.  Following the rules and looking obedient will keep herself, but after so many years of being a tool she is starting to awaken to other possibilities.  When she breaks protocol and leaves her past behind, it is the beginning of the end for Neva.  Breaking away from the Network paints a target on her back, and she has no idea how deep the conspiracy goes.  When Michael stumbles across Neva and discovers who she is he discovers that she is more than just a cold blooded killer, she is also a victim of a conspiracy that has its fingers in lots of different pies.  Neva just wants to break away from the Network, but they can't afford to let her go.  When the team at Archive uncovers some startling connections between a cold case they are investigating and Neva, the walls start closing in for both Michael and Neva - who can they trust in a world where for some people, keeping secrets is like breathing.

I stumbled across The house of killers in a new books list for my local public library and the blurb seemed really intriguing - especially the line about it being Killing Eve meets Jason Bourne.  I tend to like my reads more at the thriller end of the crime genre, but every now and then a great blurb will tempt me to read books from the action genre and this was one of those times when I didn't regret it one bit.  Samantha Lee Howe has a spare writing style, she doesn't bury you with mindless details, and keeps the action moving along at a decent pace.  You get to see the world of Neva and Michael without drowning in minute details that don't really add anything - which means she is able to cover a lot of ground, and a lot of action in a 410 pages!  

Howe has created a believable world for her characters, one that should appeal to readers of the genre - as well as ring true to conspiracy theorists who would no doubt state emphatically that the Network is real!  The shifting perspectives between Neva and Michael are well handled and offer you a glimpse of both their lives and what they are going through, without resorting to using the 'voice of god' third person view that can get very annoying very quickly.  The chapters are fast moving, and it is easy to keep up with what is happening.  This was a great find, and hopefully I don't have to wait too long to get my hands on the sequels Kill or die and Kill a spy.

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Reviewed by Brilla

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