Lavender: In the Kill – K. Sterling

Sage Bradley, a serial do-gooder, has a hit on him. Lavender, top assassin, was sent to kill him but fortunately or unfortunately succumbed to his charms. They had a romantic night together but the morning after brings another assassin set to do what Lavender failed to do. Lavender shot the assassin and then he and Sage had to hide while Lavender tried to find out who set up Sage as a target. 

True, the characters are too good to be true, slightly cutesy with improbable names. True, Lavender was wasting precious time doing the hanky panky with Sage rather than doing his job. True, I preferred Lavender to Jeremy but I could live with all of that and still have a good time with the book until 80% of the story when Sage started acting like a childish, hypocritical, spoil brat  and being generally useless most of the time.

I am supposed to like Sage. I mean who can hate a pure-hearted, beautiful man who helps homeless children, knits bonnets for the elderly and gives a cat CPR? And I did like him at first then he started being helpless and useless and naive on top of not being able to accept Lavender for what he is despite Lavender doing all he could to keep Sage not only alive but happy. That was sooo annoying. It got to the point where I thought Reginald might have been a better match for Lavender. I think it kind of went downhill when Jeremy came into the picture.

Lavender is obviously my favorite character here. A high functioning sociopath who wears the sharpest suits around. Lovely! I didn’t like the part where he had to retire to be a better man for Sage. That’s like killing (no pun intended)

a part of himself. His new job was great but just be Lavender please!

I enjoyed Lavender and Chief West’s interaction and I want to see more of West and Aidan in the next books. To be a fly in the wall at their dinner double date!

If we remove all the boring exchange of body fluids, things do happened fast and the bonanza of dead bodies at the climax showed how truly bad-ass Lavender could be. I just wished he shot Sage too and end things like in Blood Stained Tea. But of course Sage got his Jeremy in the end and all is well until the next book. 

Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bits

Soundtrack: I Want to Protect You
Artist: Eels
Album: Useless Trinkets

(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32812134-in-the-kill)