After a 14-year tenure as a successful CEO, Ishmael Dollah is settling into retirement in Singapore. But then…someone threatens his son’s happiness.

With decades of corporate strategy, crisis management and ruthless decision-making under his belt, how does he handle this situation? He decides to become a professional assassin!

Ishmael applies the same executive efficiency to find a permanent solution – eliminate the threat. The kill awakens something in him. Purpose. Control. A thrill he hasn’t felt in years.

In Assassins Are Our Greatest Assets, the second book in the series, Ishmael grows more confident and comfortable with each kill.

Three assassinations in three weeks. Retirement is off to a roaring start!

But Ishmael’s actions do not go unnoticed. A sharp, relentless presence enters the story – Inspector Julia Binti Shafiq of Singapore CID. Intelligent, intuitive, and unwilling to accept easy answers, Julia begins to sense that something dark is moving beneath the surface.

As the investigation begins and the walls close in, the line begins to blur for Ishmael…

Is he still the protector…or become the threat himself?

He used to run companies. Now he eliminates threats. And business is booming.

A darkly compelling thriller about what happens when a high-functioning executive finds his true calling – in murder.

My Review

Sometimes I wonder at myself, but I found book two even more hilarious than book one. But then I am writing a ‘comedy’ about a serial killer, so maybe I just have a warped (and dark) sense of humour.

In book one, retired CEO-turned-assassin Ishmael Dollah dispatched his first two victims and is getting pretty good at it. It’s all in the planning you see. It must be meticulous. Leave no stone unturned, though I think he needs to improve his disposal methods. Not of the bodies, but of his clothing and murder tools ie the evidence.

We now have a potential third target – the man who spread the false rumours about his son’s wife having an affair and almost destroyed their marriage. The man is a trouble maker and needs to go. Deserves to go in fact. So Ishmael decides to set him up online. It’s called catfishing apparently – I learned a lot if I ever decide to assassinate anyone (I’m joking).

In the meantime Inspector Julia Binti Shafiq of Singapore CID is looking at CCTV of who was coming and going on the evenings of the first two killings from book one. There is only one person she sees both times, but no-one believes her. She needs to get on with her other cases she is told by her boss, and forget about what’s been and gone. And one of those cases revolves around a domestic help who was bullied and starved by her employers.

We follow both threads and wonder if they will come together. That remains to be seen.

I loved this series. It’s just up my street. And who else spotted that Ishmael’s wife Nysa is going to order their son’s birthday cake from Sinsations, which is owned by the author’s wife Radhika in real life. I hope we get to see his cake on Instagram! Her cakes are amazing.

Many thanks to the author for inviting me to submit a review of book two in the series.

Social Media Links / Instagram
@shesh_author
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Buy Links:
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Goodreads
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About the Author

Shesh, or Venkatraman Sheshashayee, is a retired CEO living in Singapore. Armed with degrees in Marine Engineering and Management, he first sailed across half the known world and then built businesses across most of the rest of it. In his career spanning thirty-eight years, he built companies from scratch, transformed them and turned them around. Currently, he mentors nine start-ups and about twenty professionals. He is a director on three boards and advises two more.

He started writing in his teens. His articles have been published in trade publications (relating to the maritime and offshore energy industry) across the world.

Shesh is married to Singapore’s best home baker, Radhika (www.sinsationsbyradhika.com). They have two children, both of whom are in Singapore building a start-up in the physical fitness space.

When not mentoring or writing, he runs, plays tennis and reads. Though never at the same time.