Assassins Anonymous

12 steps for a deadly addiction

Assassins Anonymous begins and ends in the Christmas season but this is a Christmas book like Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It’s part thriller, part meditative examination of life and friendship, and I practically inhaled it.

Meet Mark, ex-Navy Seal and ex-assassin for a group that’s beyond the CIA (“The CIA was peewee football and he was with the NFL.”) He was extremely good at his work but after 15 years of mayhem he’s living in New York and in his first year of recovery – from killing people. He’s doing ok with a mentor named Kenji and a cat named P-Kitty keeping him straight.

P-Kitty (adorable name) is the orange cat that literally saved Mark’s life. He’s sweet and dumb and the book wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Assassins Anonymous opens with a shock of violence and then it’s off and running, back and forth in time, across multiple continents, wounds and bodies piling up. It’s almost like they don’t want him to retire…

Mark’s origin story as a feared assassin is epic: a Singapore hotel turns out to be full of targets when he expected just two bodyguards plus the rouge CDC scientist he was sent to eliminate. After some serious improvisation and a bit of luck he ends up being the last man standing. When he meets with his connection afterward he receives his handle: Pale Horse (“people tell stories about the Pale Horse like he was some kind of supernatural creature.”) – and he liked it.

Mark’s voice is weary and matter-of-fact with an underlying thread of sarcasm. Like the time he’s ready to spar with an enemy and notices that “now he sports the telltale bulge of a gun at his waistband clumsily tucked into the front of his pants.” He muses, “That’s so dumb, you’ll never get a clean draw. Why do people do that? The answer is: movies. Always movies.”

I had never heard of author Rob Hart but I saw the write up for this book in the free BookPage magazine I pick up at the library.  He published this one in 2024 and has a sequel one out now – The Medusa Protocol – and a third in the series coming next year –  “Three Hitmen and a Baby.”

Hart’s prose and powers of description are definitely cinematic. He has a unique style, hard and spare but then kind of nostalgic and softer with great dialog.

“…I drop into a loose fighting stance when out of the shadows steps a man who looks like a cross between a Rottweiler and a brick wall. He’s massive…”

Characters in Assassins Anonymous include a mysterious Russian, a woman who patches up injured people who can’t go to a hospital, and a ragtag group of fellow killers in recovery. Humorous moments abound, like the group debating the merits of having a serial killer in their midst – they have their standards.

High points include the Bond-like scene in the back of a diner where Mark loads up on non-lethal weapons: an air pistol with pepper-spray pellets (and a gas mask); a steel friction baton (snaps out to full length of 21 inches); some flash-bang grenades (3 bursts of sound and light); and a device that emits a laser that overwhelms the optical nerve. The aggravated purveyor – a woman named Lulu – just makes the scene even more fun.

I also kept chuckling at the running Jason Statham joke (“You don’t look like an assassin. Jason Statham looks like an assassin…”)

Assassins Anonymous is an action-packed, violent and philosophical romp with an underlying message of redemption. I’m looking forward to more of the Pale Horse.