Coming down from the emotional rollercoaster that is Killing Sarai I don’t know quite how I feel right now. I have literally just finished the book and my head and my stomach are in knots!
This isn’t a mushy love story but more a journey of discovery for both Sarai and Victor the main two characters in this twisted tale of death and lies. Everything screams to you that you ought to feel sorry for Sarai and not like Victor, merely because of who they are and from where they have both emerged. But I have finished the book actually really in love with Victor and all of his assassin bad ass attitude as well as rooting for Sarai and her search for who she is.
The story begins with Sarai running from her life as a sex slave in Mexico using Victor as her means of escape. He doesn’t plan on helping her and is put in a compromising position when he finds her in his car after leaving her captors compound. From here, the story follows the battle of his conscience versus his loyalty and allegiance to the Order, an assassination organization he was kidnapped into at 9 years of age. He is a sharp shooting assassin and nothing else matters. It’s his life and his only focus.
Sarai has not known much about real life having had a disturbed childhood then been thrust into sex slavery from the age of 14. In many ways she is naïve to real life and certainly to the life that Victor leads. And she is never fully put in the picture either. But as she escapes Victor is all she knows in the outside world and she has to trust that he will finally set her free.
What follows is a twisty path of discovery, contract murder and intrigue. I was gripped from the start. For all concerned you get the feeling that the best option is for Victor to simply execute Sarai and get on with his life. He complicated a simple execution by holding on to her and what follows is his own internal struggle between killing her and helping her. The longer she stays alive the more he is compromising his own life and the Order.
Also add Niklas to the mix (another assassin from the Order and someone close to Victor) and it adds to the intense intrigue of the whole book. He also knows that Sarai should be killed and it’s a matter of if not when as far as he is concerned.
There were moments throughout the book where my heart was in my mouth and to be honest my stomach was churning with every opportunity that was presented to Victor to kill Sarai. Does he succeed in wrestling with his conscience or does his assassin’s common sense prevail? I won’t tell you – read the book to find out!
This is such a brilliant diversion from my norm and has had my attention from the first page. The last chapter and epilogue to the book leaves the story on a tentative knife-edge and I need to finish this review so I can go open my kindle and read on! This proper page-turner gets five fab stars from me!
