The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

This is a quick romp of a novella. I know it's overused to call something a romp these days, but this truly is a whirlwind of action, humor, and snark. The amount of banter and fight scenes make it feel like it's material that would also make a good comic, but I also quite enjoyed the unfolding mystery and worldbuilding.

This is also a much funnier book than a lot of Clark's previous work. There's ongoing jokes about assassin rules ("Assassin rule 305: always be ready to torch your safe house"). There's some great banter about work friends vs actual friends. I was also amused that Aeril the Matron of Assassins also runs really good restaurants (due to the knife connection), and one of the assassin bureaucrats is a foodie trying to angle their way into the restaurant business.

There are very clear rules about being an assassin and Eveen the Eviscerator (it was one time, she says) follows them very carefully. After all, being an assassin is the only reason that she’s alive…well, not actually alive. She’s undead. In her first life, she made a promise to serve Aeril, the Matron of Assassins, for one hundred years. In P. Djèlí Clark’s beautifully plotted and highly entertaining novella, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, we get to witness Eveen’s greatest caper...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.