Kimberly Valva is the world\u2019s most unlikely hired killer. Self-employed graphic designers who make ends meet by serving guests at country clubs and praying to put away enough money for the surgery that would save their ailing goldendoodles\u2019 lives don\u2019t fit the profile. But Kim\u2019s unlikely credentials, combined with her need for quick cash, may be exactly what attracts The Stranger, a computerized telephone voice that offers her $20,000 if she slips a lethal dose into new member Anthony Fuller\u2019s drink. There seems to be just one glitch: Unknown to everyone else, Anthony turns out to be a cleaned-up version of Tony Fiore, the bad boy who was Kim\u2019s first love back in their Brooklyn high school. Kim\u2019s unwillingness to poison Tony leads rapidly to a second glitch when his fianc\u00e9e, Poppy Jade Walsh, keels over instead. The series of flashbacks that rapidly alternate with developments in the present reveal that Kim wasn\u2019t the only aspiring killer on the murder scene: PJ, aided and abetted by her friend Matt Mazzucca, who\u2019d relocated from Texas specifically to help her, had been planning for over a year to target Tony, who\u2019d killed PJ\u2019s mother in a robbery back in 2006. More threats and surprises will follow at a brisk pace that flags only in the final chapters, when the tale runs distinctly lower on energy and ingenuity, though not on casualties.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kimberly Valva is the world\u2019s most unlikely hired killer. Self-employed graphic designers who make ends meet by serving guests at country clubs and praying to put away enough money for the surgery that would save their ailing goldendoodles\u2019 lives don\u2019t fit the profile. But Kim\u2019s unlikely credentials, combined with her need for quick cash, may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}