We did it! We did it! We finished our final book club selection, making it twenty books in one year. Yay us! Well technically, it’s twenty one as #3 of the Hitwoman series, The Hitwoman gets Lucky is a novella of 80 pages so it made sense to continue on to #4 which is a full length book.

Since The Hitwoman gets Lucky is a novella, you can tell this is more filler. The plot is light-Patrick enlists Maggie’s help to steal a harddrive in Atlantic City- and serves to set up two major chekhov’s gun. One, is it provides Armani the opportunity to gift Maggie a shark tooth, and two, it brings Patrick and Maggie to a major kiss that is promptly rejected.

Still, it’s a fun novella with the usual humor that comes from God piggybacking in Maggie’s bra, prompting lots of confused looks when tourists hear her boobs squeaking, the true identity of the harddrive owner, Lucky O’Hara, and Armani’s Barry Manilow obsession is in full fruit. I also enjoyed how it gives Maggie a chance to show off her quick-thinking during the “worst fake stick-up in history.” She may not have all her marbles, but she’s no idiot.

Now this is where things get really exciting! After building it up in the first two books we finally see corrupt Paul Kowalski’s true colors when he breaks Mr. Lee out of jail and goes after Maggie to get the mysterious family jewels.

It was enjoyable to see the disparate plot threads of Mr. Lee, Paul, and Marlene come together in a truly twisty mystery. The last two twists were a real surprise as it’s obvious where Paul and Mr. Lee stand on the robbery gone wrong but everyone else is a big question mark.

Like Patrick, after the rejected kiss, Maggie is trying to move on but she also can’t let go of the knowledge that Patrick is attracted her despite his best instincts. It’s great to see things move forward in their complicated relationship, but the the brief moment of passion between them in Maggie’s old bedroom felt out of character. Not them hooking up, but the descriptors felt more fitting for a purple-prose historical romance than the quick-paced narration that defines the series.

Outside of Patrick, Maggie begins to realize that maybe she had her Dad partially wrong in regards to his parental affection for his daughters, and that maybe Templeton is not so much of a rat as she thought when he saves her from Paul with a croquette mallet. (An aside, I know the assault scene was played for drama and it showed how dangerous Paul is but the inclusion of the croquet mallet automatically made it hilarious to me)

The humor is top-notch as usual with the federal agents having no idea how to deal with the three witches, and Maggie gaining another stray animal to feed, a one-eyed, southern belle of a cat dubbed Piss.

The ending leaves readers off with another cliffhanger and I’m eager to see who done it, and how Maggie’s returned sister, Marlene, fits into the whole deal. My friend thinks she’s going to be a lone wolf after being out on the streets for the past decade. I think that Marlene will stay away a bit but eventually be brought back into the fold. We shall see in The Hitwoman and the Neurotic Witness which I’ll get to sometime next year.