Name: The Perfect Assassin
ISBN: 9780765398550

K. A. Doore

A novice assassin is on the hunt for someone killing their own in K. A. Doore's The Perfect Assassin, a breakout high fantasy beginning the Chronicles of Ghadid series. Divine justice is written in blood. Or so Amastan has been taught. As a new assassin in the Basbowen family, he’s already having second thoughts about taking a life. A scarcity of contracts ends up being just what he needs. Until, unexpectedly, Amastan finds the body of a very important drum chief. Until, impossibly, Basbowen’s finest start showing up dead, with their murderous jaan running wild in the dusty streets of Ghadid. Until, inevitably, Amastan is ordered to solve these murders, before the family gets blamed. Every life has its price, but when the tables are turned, Amastan must find this perfect assassin or be their next target. “The Perfect Assassin is a thrilling fantastical mystery that had me racing through the pages.” —S. A. Chakraborty, author of The City of Brass “Full of rooftop fights, frightening magic, and nonstop excitement and mystery, I absolutely loved it from start to finish!” — Sarah Beth Durst

Book 1 in the Chronicles of Ghadid

The Perfect Assassin

Laura Kehoe

As a lifelong lover of fantasy, I'm always happy when I read a fresh, new take on world building. So when I picked up The Perfect Assassin, I was excited to see this wouldn't be the kind-of-like-medieval-Europe-but-a-little-different world that I often find in fantasy. That, combined with the fun and developed characters, made this a really good read!

Even though I ended up really enjoying The Perfect Assassin, it didn't start off as one of my favorite books. I mean, I recognized right away that the world building and character development was really impressive. But for some reason the story seemed to lag for me. It wasn't until about halfway through that I really started getting wrapped up in this book. Once I did, however, I couldn't put this one down!

I adored the characters. Amastan is such a precious cinnamon roll and the rest of the cast was equally interesting in their own ways. Even when the plot seemed to drag a bit, I kept coming back to this book in large part because of the wonderful characters. (And, of course, the world building made up for a lot too!). 

The Perfect Assassin is definitely worth reading if you like fantasy or murder mysteries, or both! I might not have started off the strongest, but the ending blew me away. I'm excited to see what comes next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review!

Sheila

4 stars. An assassin story unlike any I’ve read before! I appreciated that, for a fantasy, it was very light on the magic (I would like to know more about the healer & marab magic though). This book has a very good conclusion, so I’m curious to see where the following books lead!

Alexia Cambaling

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books!

I liked The Perfect Assassin and I thought it was a pretty strong debut, despite kind of dragging in the middle. Still, I did enjoy what I've read and I thought there's some pretty cool lore and world-building here.

The Perfect Assassin is set in the city of Ghadid, a city in the desert where walls keep the citizens safe from the jaan or spirits of dead. It's Middle-Eastern inspired and I suspect that it's also partly inspired by the historical Assassins who first appeared during the Crusades. Here, Amastan is a novice assassin who has just been recently finished his training. Almost immediately, he gets caught up in things his training did not prepare him for.

Right off the bat, this story starts a bit in media res as we get introduced to Amastan while he is being tested to be a full-fledged assassin. Amastan is an interesting character as he's clearly devoted to the family of assassins he belongs to and yet, there are secrets hidden from him he wishes to uncover and truths he may not be ready for. In the book, he befriends (and later forms a relationship) with Yufit from whom he conceals his true nature and who, we later on discover, is keeping secrets of his own.

I liked The Perfect Assassin, although I docked 1.5 stars because it dragged a lot in the middle and it could get a little bit hard to follow. Still, it's pretty enjoyable and I'm rounding it up to 4 stars on Goodreads because it is a good murder mystery set in a fantasy world. It's not really very high fantasy, or not as high fantasy as I expected it to be after the first few chapters. The bulk of the story focuses on the murders happening and how it ties in to the internal politics of the city. Still, the murder mystery did keep me guessing and I did not figure out who did it until the murderer was revealed.

Overall, I can recommend The Perfect Assassin to anyone who likes a high fantasy story without any epic-scale stakes and is okay with smaller-scale stories like murder mysteries. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that I would love to read more stories set in a high fantasy world without any world-changing events.

This review is also on  The Bookworm Daydreamer

Anyaconda

I'd describe this as a fantasy-mystery. We follow a freshly graduated assassin called Amastan, trying to solve the mystery of who killed one of the drum chiefs. Along the way he finds more bodies and is chased by jaani (some sort of angry souls/ghosts), who attack and possess people, drive them insane and eventually kill them. I'd have liked a bit more info about the world and I found the characters a bit lacking. Altogether it was an ok solid read, but not very memorable. Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.

The Perfect Assassin Book 1 in the Chronicles of Ghadid