Book Review: The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening
The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening by Naomi Kuttner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I dearly love settling down with a good cozy mystery. The title of this book and the cover art simply screams “cozy!” so of course I picked it up.
While the story is quite good, and the setting is perfectly adorable, I have a couple of nitpicks I can’t suppress. While Dante, our retired assassin, is cute as heck being a fish out of water when it comes to cozy country life, he does his best. And I LOVE that he attends Assassins Anonymous meetings. But he’s soon overshadowed by a woman who should be just a side character, Eleanor. She barges into the plot and takes it over. I feel she tipped the balance too far into making this her story, not Dante’s.
I also noted some inconsistencies that should have been caught in editing/proofing. A particular tree branch was pruned multiple times, Dante’s sweatshirt suddenly morphed into a button-down shirt, and so on.
With luck these are just rookie oversights and the second book will show improved crafting. I have it waiting in my Kindle, and will get into it soon.
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
