Fifteen years ago, hit man Tyrone Cypher disappeared into the wilderness. Now he’s back with a job for his old “friend” Jack. While Jack doesn’t consider Cypher much of a friend, the job is ideal for Nadia. 
There’s a killer in Honolulu, targeting those involved in the family court system. When no one else would take one victim’s cases, lawyer Angela Kamaka did, putting herself squarely in the killer’s cross-sights. 
For Nadia, Angela is the perfect victim—an innocent person in danger for doing the right thing. So Nadia and Jack get an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii courtesy of Tyrone Cypher, who has his own reasons for wanting to keep Angela safe.

IN A NUTSHELL
A thriller with a strong plot, a lot of action, a few surprises and a pretty setting. Readers get to see Nadia being unequivocally on the side of the angels for once and they get to see how the relationship between her and Jack has developed. 

This novella is the last entry in Kelley Armstrong’s series about Nadia Stafford, an ex-cop turned ethical assassin who alsoruns a lodge resort in the forests outside Toronto. It’s been ten years since I read the trilogy ‘Exit Strategy‘ (2007), ‘Made To Be Broken‘ (2009) and ‘Wild Justice‘ (2013). It was one of the first series I read that twisted the assassin trope and put a credible woman at its centre. 

The trilogy had a strong story arc and felt complete to me. It seems that Kelley Armstrong wanted to know what happened next with Nadia and her fellow assassin, Jack so, in 2016, she published two novellas, ‘Double Play‘ and ‘Perfect Victim‘. 

In ‘Perfect Victim’ Jack and Nadia get to go to Hawaii and play the good guys, trying to protect someone whose life has been threatened. 

What I liked about the book was that the plot was cleverly constructed, the mystery held my attention, there was a lot of action without the need for a huge body count, I didn’t guess who was responsible for the murders and I got to see Nadia doing something different than her normal competent assassin role.

What worked less well for me were the parts of the plot that had a let’s tidy everything up between Nadia and Jack feel to them. That’s possibly because I’ve never understood what Nadia sees in the older, frequently guilt-ridden and always taciturn Jack. Even though half of the chapters are written from his point of view, I still have very little idea of what’s going on in his head. Still, none of it was gushing or oversentimental. It just didn’t do anything for me.