An unknown caller wants Millie’s firm to kill a Russian mobster who might already be dead. A mortuary attendant with unidentified bodies. Characters who are never who they seem to be, including corpses. Can Millie find the truth and survive?
Millie Henshawe—tough, smart, gay ex-GI assassin for Continental Removals, LLC, in Boston—has reservations, big reservations. The Philly branch of the firm has just called a new kill Yuri Kuznetsov. Millie’s doubts multiply when she learns the target may already be dead. As her pal in the firm Ralphie puts it, “He was whacked? Well, looks like somebody wants to whack him again.” So begins Dead Sure, the second novel in the Millie Henshawe series. What follows lives up to Millie’s reservations. Who is Kuznetov? Who wants him dead? Why? And how come two guys in a big black BMW are chasing her through the Boston suburbs? Caught in a tangle of gun-toting nuns, corpses who aren’t who they’re supposed to be, an enigmatic Russian Orthodox priest, a shady funeral parlor, and a target who may or may not have already been removed, Millie brings her best hitwoman skills to the task. With the Russians on her tail, the body count rising, and a leak in her own network, she links up with a nervous Ukrainian mortician to work out who’s who and whether this guy Kuznetsov has risen from the dead. A fast-paced, black comedy of errors, Dead Sure speeds through the maze of crossed identities, crossed wires, and crossed motives, with Millie firmly at the wheel.
Dead Sure is a tight noir mystery that moves along at a blistering pace, with surprises around every corner. The story is soaked in its hometown of Boston, with entertaining characters whose voices you can practically hear. If you enjoy a satisfying, down-and-dirty noir mystery, you cannot go wrong with Dead Sure!