alving4 's review for:

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

4.0

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I really enjoyed this story, set in an exotic fantasy realm, of a hired assassin known as Eveen the Eviscerator whose latest contract ends up being someone she just cannot bring herself to kill. While I expected the kind of colourful characters that populate an assassin's story (tricky bosses, competing killers out for your blood, local crime lords, etc.), the world-building in this story was much more expansive (including a healthy share of assassin lore and really fantastic local legends), especially for such a short novella. Think more Arabian Nights than John Wick. The plot contained some interesting twists and goes in certain surprising directions right from the start, as Eveen tries to figure out what's going on. Despite all that good stuff that makes this a pretty fresh, fun tale, there was one big issue that was distracting through most of the story. Clark's writing is very good for the most part. He can paint a picture (especially a character portrait) with words pretty well. However, the choice to use contemporary colloquial language and slang (the word "mansplain" was used!) in such a fantastical setting, was really distracting. It lessened as the story went on, but it was frustrating to me throughout. Also, for the audiobook, some of the voices used were not great. One of the main characters sounded like a 5 year old girl, who I was shocked to learn was supposed to be 19! And at the climax of the book, a major character has a patois that was a bit tough for me to understand. Nevertheless, I found this to be a really imaginative and enjoyable read. I hope there will be more adventures in this world.