In Book 1 – Martina arrives home early and as she is unwinding the assassin pounces and starts to garotte her with a wire. Despite her struggles, he hoists her up, keeping control of what is happening and ensuring she is powerless to act against him. He takes his time to be professional and slowly strangles her out and as she expires he lowers her to the floor with his job complete.

In Book 2 – Mara Bianchi arrives home and starts to unwind for the night after a hard day working parliament. Ashe settles down, she is surprised as a steel wire wraps round her neck. Startled and surprised, she struggles for any kind of traction as the noose tightens. As the hitman adds more force, she is pulled backwards and upwards and her feet scrabble for purchase on the floor. As the wire bites in, the panic is all consuming until it is all over.

These are two very short stories from two books in a series about an assassination from two different points of view, the first story from the hitman and the second from the victim. Both of them are very short and only cover the scene itself, not the setup or the afterword of the attack. While this concentrates everything down to the few seconds and minutes it covers, it leaves it wanting for any kind of reason and given the name of a title, the lack of why it is happening doesn’t help. It is difficult to give any characterisation to those in the story, although the hitman seems to waver between solid professional and someone who is slightly unhinged, perhaps both. But with no reason behind his comments it’s difficult to understand why he is doing what he is. What did surprise is that the writing is sharp and descriptive, bringing into fine detail the situation and the struggles that happen each time. It means that the very act of the murder is caught in sharp relief and each moment played out, but with little to no context, it feels gratuitous as if the only reason for reading these stories is to watch the suffering and struggle of the victims.

The formatting of the first book leaves a lot to be desired, having no gaps between paragraphs and making it difficult to read. The second one is as you would expect with the story. I picked up the first story and was surprised by its brevity and noticed the second one was also available. Deciding to see how it had changed or if it continued the story, I was slightly surprised and disappointed that it was very similar to the first only with the differing viewpoint. The other oddment is that the second book is played from the viewpoint of the murder victim, but it stills covers actions to them that occur after their death.

Overall, these stories left me cold. With no background to wrap around them, you are just left with a titillating murder played out for someone’s pleasure.