Review: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fairly short book (200+ pages) that I was able to read in one sitting … so I can easily say that it all just worked. The foundation premise and world building were fun and interesting (an undead assassin caught up in a conspiracy that threatens her own very existence … to say nothing of the other members of her guild). So we get a combination of mystery, magic, action and humor that made it hard to put down all the way to a rather satisfying ending … perhaps my only complaint (and for me it was enough to subtract a half point … then I rounded up at the end) is the mangled, quasi-caribbean, dialect used by the assassin’s patron deity, which was so difficult for me to understand that I skipped most of her dialog and just picked up the gist from the context. Fortunately this was limited to the last part of the story, so I was already fully invested in the story and outcome. The snarky humor of the main character may not be for everybody, but I really enjoyed it (it reminded me of another favor series with the same black humor). Just as important for me was that it was more or less a unique take on a common trope (it didn’t feel mechanical or derivative), which made it so much more interesting overall.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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